


Shining On The Quay

by t_fic (topaz), topaz, topaz119 (topaz)



Series: Shining On The Quay [1]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Age Difference, Community: startrekbigbang, First Time, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-01
Updated: 2011-11-01
Packaged: 2017-10-25 15:05:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 22,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/271638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/topaz/pseuds/t_fic, https://archiveofourown.org/users/topaz/pseuds/topaz, https://archiveofourown.org/users/topaz/pseuds/topaz119
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Captain Christopher Pike left the bridge of the USS Enterprise over Vulcan, he went with the full knowledge that he was a dead man walking. The team he left in command had a different idea, one that they managed to pull off; and so, in the weeks and months after, Chris found himself putting his life back together.</p><p>He was more than a little surprised to find Jim Kirk a part of it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [2011 Star Trek Big Bang](http://startrekbigbang.livejournal.com). Art by [](http://deliciousny.livejournal.com/profile)[**deliciousny**](http://deliciousny.livejournal.com/) [here](http://deliciousny.livejournal.com/28624.html). Fanmix by [](http://cero-ate.livejournal.com/profile)[**cero_ate**](http://cero-ate.livejournal.com/) [here](http://cero-ate.livejournal.com/134499.html).
> 
> Please be aware that this contains references to, and the aftermath of, (canon) torture, maybe a little more detailed than what was shown in the movie (please feel free to contact me if you want to get into specifics; I'm happy to provide more detail.)

  


**\-- 1 --**   


“I am relieved.”

Chris listened hard as he spoke, allowing himself to relax fractionally when he heard nothing but a calm, even tone, the only shadings those of pride and approval directed toward the young man standing in front of him.

He heard nothing of his disappointment at only having had one brief go at the _Enterprise_ , none of the hatred he channeled toward the chair, none of the grief at losing so many--cadets and friends--before he even knew it happened.

His smile was real, too; as genuine as he could make it, and he thought Kirk understood as he stepped away and turned to face the rest of the academy. Chris eased back, the chair moving smoothly under him, and let the _Enterprise_ 's new captain take the moment.

* * * * * *

Chris remembered the bar from his own Academy days. The more he looked, the more he was sure nothing had changed; if anything, the place looked even grungier than it had then. It was packed so full it was hard to judge, though. The bouncers at the front door let his group in without a second glance--clearly Ensign Colt, his newly assigned aide, was in possession of advance planning skills that also extended to discreet bribery. Until now, she had registered on Chris's radar mostly for her stellar record at the Academy and the fact that she apparently had no issues with her assignment. Chris was going to have to pay closer attention to the woman; there was no telling how useful she might end up being while he was in recovery from the next round of surgeries.

“Hell of a party,” Leonard McCoy shouted, still only barely audible over the solid wall of sound in the room. His eyes swept over Chris and and the bloody entourage Chris traveled with these days, thanks to the the ongoing medical crap. McCoy's look was sharp and knowing, despite the slightly rumpled look to his uniform and the glass of liquor in his hand. “I was beginning to think you weren't gonna show.”

“The effort involved in getting anywhere that's not a hospital is … somewhat ridiculous,” Chris answered.

“Damned glad to see you're making it,” McCoy said, handing Chris his glass and waving at the bartender for another. It proved to be single-barrel bourbon, if Chris was any judge (which he was): aged to perfection and as smooth as silk going down.

“Sir--” Lt. Andrews, the charge nurse for Chris's case, objected, and Chris resigned himself to handing over the glass.

“Doctor's orders,” McCoy interrupted without hesitation, and Andrews, all six-two of him, subsided without another murmur. McCoy leaned closer to Chris, establishing at least an illusion of privacy. “I took the liberty of checking your chart--being the first doctor to sink his claws into you has some ongoing privileges--and nothing they've got you on is gonna take offense to a little of Tennessee's finest.”

McCoy took the glass the bartender slid down the bar to him and raised it.

“Out _standing_ ,” Chris answered, tapping his own glass against it and meeting McCoy's smile.

* * * * * *

It _was_ a hell of a party, fitting with the strange circumstances. Front and center, a wiry man wearing Engineering colors had the crowd yelling and singing along to one of the more cheerfully obscene songs Chris could ever remember hearing one minute and leading them in quiet, reflective ballads to honor those who never came back from Vulcan the next. Chris made sure he was tucked back out of the way--it wasn't _his_ party--but word filtered out that he was there, and a quiet, steady stream of people found their way to his corner. His people, for the most part; the ones he'd interviewed and hand-picked for the _Enterprise_ , but also cadets who'd filled in the skeleton crew, for whom he couldn't be more than a name on a duty roster.

As the night wore on and Chris nursed his bourbon--no need to push his luck, not with the next round of surgery scheduled in less than a week--he came to realize he knew almost every face. Kirk had made a few changes; had filled in for those they'd lost, but even then, Chris recognized them. He approved of the choices, all of them, right down the line--even the ones he wouldn't have made himself, because he could see how they'd fit better with a team led by Kirk.

The sheer number of people started to wear Chris down after a while. His strength was up tenfold from where he'd been on the long trip back to Earth after the final confrontation with the _Narada_ , but that wasn't saying much. Lt. Andrews was good with the tricorder--half the time, Chris never even noticed him scanning vitals--but he made a point of hauling it out as they discussed whether Chris needed to call it a night. Andrews was leaning hard toward yes, but Chris proposed a compromise of a little air and relative quiet.

As much as Chris hated the constant monitoring, it wasn't Andrews's fault. Chris reminded himself a thousand times a day that it was what it was; that nothing about serving the Federation came with a guarantee; that space and all its spectacular rewards had never been without considerable risk. He acknowledged that he'd never thought he'd care if the risks became reality because he assumed he'd be dead, but then the universe always did have a strange sense of humor--and so here he was, allowing a highly trained, exceedingly specialized medical professional to decide if his central nervous system could handle another hour of sitting and watching life go by.

“Looks good, sir,” Andrews said, squinting ever so slightly at the rapidly scrolling charts. “No medical reason to return to Base.” He sounded vaguely aggrieved, as though the tricorder had betrayed him with the steady readings.

“It's the bourbon,” Chris told him. “I'm sure Dr. McCoy would back me up on that.” Andrews sighed, a long-suffering look on his face, and then winced as an over-enthusiastic conversation, one punctuated by waving arms, sent a pyramid of shot glasses crashing down onto the bar, people jumping back to avoid being splashed with the virulently blue Andorian ale they'd contained. Chris bit back a grin and maneuvered the chair out of his protected corner and out into the small side yard that adjoined the main building.

The sudden drop in noise was welcome, as was the cooler temperature, but Chris got the biggest boost from not having to be _on_. Out here in the night, he could breathe and shift around to try to get a little more comfortable in the chair and no one would take it as a sign of... boredom, weakness, unusually rapid healing, unusually slow healing--whatever they wanted to read into it. Even Andrews's fussing, as unobtrusive as it was, was easier to take without an audience.

“Ten minutes,” Chris said, a compromise between the quieter surroundings and the ever-present night chill; Andrews nodded and tapped his PADD to start the clock. It used to be that Chris had a near-perfect grasp of time passing, but one of the lingering effects of his time on the _Narada_ \--no one was sure if it was caused by the neurotoxins themselves or the psychological stresses of extended torture--was that he couldn't judge time worth shit now. Of all the side-effects, it was laughably minor, but also one of the most aggravating. Andrews never commented on it, simply set timers and clocks and made sure Chris always had some frame of reference. Chris wasn't sure if he was more grateful for the man's actions or his steadfast refusal to make an issue of it.

Andrews had just said, “Time, sir,” when the door banged open, and two breathless, staggering shadows slipped out onto the flagstones. Chris didn't mean to pry, but they were making no effort to keep their voices down, and it was easy to identify them.

“Bones. Bones, shit, is the world spinning for you?” Kirk groaned. “It's goin' like a top for me.”

“Yeah?” McCoy answered, with the dry affection Chris had come to know well on the trip back to Earth. “Imagine that--you've only been drinking with that baby-faced Russian for an hour.”

“Fuck, he said it was vodka, but holy shit, am I wasted.” Kirk had his arm around McCoy's shoulders; Chris was fairly certain it was the only reason he was still standing. “Stay with me for a couple of minutes. Let me get my bearings. Captains aren't supposed to be like this.”

“ _Now_ you're gonna worry about what captains are supposed to be like?”

“Shut up, Bones. Show some respect.”

“Here, shift over.” McCoy got Kirk down and sitting on a low stone wall. ”I could probably find something to perk you up.”

“Oh, god, you're gonna jab me, aren't you?”

“Only if you ask me nicely,” McCoy said dryly as he fumbled through a small medbag. He produced a hypospray and had it up against Kirk's neck before he could get away.

“Ow, shit, why do your cures always hurt?”

“Quit your whining and let that stim get through your system.”

It got quiet; Chris should leave, or at least move forward to let them know he was there in the shadows, but Kirk was talking again, low and not sounding anything close to as drunk as he had been.

“I couldn't not drink, Bones.”

“I know.”

“Can't refuse a drink in honor of the ones who died on your watch.”

Chris's hand tightened so hard around his glass of bourbon he was surprised it didn't shatter.

“You're not doing too bad, you know?”

“With what? This?” Kirk gestured toward the hypospray and then grabbed for McCoy when even that overbalanced him. “'Cause, Bones, I know it's practically a cliché with us, but I might throw up on you.”

“Last time I looked the whiz kid had Scotty on the floor. I'd say you're holding your own with the booze. I wasn't talkin' about that. I was talkin' about--”

“Yeah,” Kirk sighed. It was quiet again for a few seconds. “Thanks, Bones.”

“You're welcome, Jim.”

“No, really. Thanks. All those people… They gave me the _Enterprise_ and all those people were there; it meant something to look out and see you.”

“God, you're a maudlin drunk. How did I not know that?” McCoy's voice was gentle for all that he was shaking his head in dismay. Kirk flapped his hand again and let McCoy haul him to his feet.

“You know what he told me?” They'd gotten almost to the door again when Kirk spoke. “Spock. Not the Spock inside, the other one. He told me my dad saw me take command. You know, in his world.”

“He couldn't have been more proud of you there than here,” McCoy said quietly. He slanted a glance sideways that met Chris's without hesitation, as if to tell Chris he'd known Chris was there the whole time. “Couldn't have been more proud than we are here.”

“Now who's a maudlin drunk?” Kirk pushed the door open, and they dove back in. Chris stayed out in the cool darkness for a few more minutes, but then went back in to be around his people for as long as his body would hold out.

* * * * * *

The next round of surgeries didn't go well; Chris didn't need the full briefing to know that. Opening his eyes and seeing Phil Boyce in the chair next to his bed told him everything he needed to know, even before he could really focus enough to see the seriousness in Phil's own eyes.

“I should have known they'd drag you out of retirement to deliver the bad news.” Chris didn't think his voice sounded all that bad, not for having been only marginally conscious for close to a week.

“Perks of having served under you,” Phil answered, and when Chris managed to get enough air to snort disbelievingly, Phil narrowed his eyes. “I wouldn't have it any other way.”

“Straight up, then.” Chris wasn't sure if he wanted to hear it, but he didn't think he had the option to pass on the truth. At the very least, he trusted Phil with everything he had and better to get the news from him than anyone else.

“They've gotten a handle on it, but there's some kind of mutation going on and it's piggybacking onto everything it can.” Phil paused to let that sink in, then said, “The geniuses out there are in extended discussions, but what it boils down to is the less you do right now, the more they can isolate it and knock it down.”

“Doesn't sound too bad,” Chris said, knowing damn well there was more, or Phil would have let one of the Fleet doctors deliver the news.

“Well,” Phil said. “When they say less, what they really mean is they want you out. Completely. Induced coma.”

“Let them put me under and hope I wake up eventually?” If it had been anyone else, Chris never would have gotten the words out. As it was, they came close to choking him. It was Phil, though, and there were some things a captain could say to his Chief Medical Officer, even after a lot of years had passed. Phil's eyes were steady on his, and Chris took a deep breath. “I don't have a choice, do I?”

“I don't think so, Chris.” Phil's voice was gruff, the way it always got when the news was shit but he couldn't not give it. “Let them do their job. I'll be keeping my eye on them.”

The room had a tall narrow window that let Chris see the Bay when the bed was angled right; he watched the shadows creep across the water as the sun slanted lower and lower. Phil stood nearby and watched it with him.

“Okay,” Chris said, finally, looking at Phil so he'd know Chris was good with it. “Tell them to do it.”

Phil nodded and put his hand on Chris's shoulder for a hard squeeze before he slipped out of the room and turned the rest of them loose. Chris turned his head back to the window and kept his eyes on the Bay until the drugs dragged him under.

Phil was there when he opened his eyes just long enough to hear it'd been a week and a half and they thought it was working. Chris thought he might have nodded before he slid back under, but it might have been a dream. The next time was a little bit less than a week, and the time after that was only a few days. After that, he was awake at least a little every day. Phil was almost always there, but at one point Chris could have sworn he saw Jim Kirk in the plain, old-fashioned chair they kept by his bedside.

They started backing off on the drugs even more as the weeks dragged out; by the middle of the fourth week, when it happened again--Chris waking up to see Kirk asleep in the chair--Chris was coherent enough to lie there and wonder what the hell was going on. Kirk was stretched out with the chair tipped back so he could lean his shoulders against the wall while his feet were propped on another chair. He stirred after a few minutes and saw Chris watching him.

“Do I even want to ask how you got in here?” Chris said, or at least tried to. With as little as he'd been talking lately, it came out more a croak than anything.

Kirk stood and stretched with a touch of that familiar smirk, shifting a PADD off his lap, just as there was a quick tap on the door and Andrews led the usual gaggle of nurses and techs in to supplement their scans with the dozens of subjective questions Chris had to answer himself. Kirk got himself out of the way, and Chris kept himself amused tracing the near-visible shock waves run through the crowd as they ID'ed his visitor.

“Bones talked to Dr. Boyce and got me in the front door," Kirk said once the room was clear. "Andrews told me I could hang out as long as I wanted, but I think he thought I'd be out of his hair in ten minutes once I sat in that chair.” Kirk poked at the offending piece of furniture with his foot. He reached over and picked up the bottle of water they kept around to force-feed Chris when he was awake. As inoffensive and mundane as it was, it symbolized still one more thing Chris had no control over; it was generally one of Chris's least favorite things to see, even this time, when he really could use something to clear the layer of drug-scuzz off his tongue. Kirk asking wordlessly, a quirk of an eyebrow, made all the difference.

“Clearly, he underestimated the years you spent sleeping through lectures in even less comfortable circumstances.”

“Yeah, or I screwed him over somehow and he's on a revenge kick under all that Zen.”

“Could be preemptive,” Chris suggested, and let Kirk take the water bottle back. “Your reputation does tend to precede you.”

“Like a fucking wrecking ball some days,” Kirk muttered, dropping back into the chair with a wince.

“So now that I know how you're here, why don't you tell me _why_ you're here.” It wasn't the most gracious way to greet a visitor... but the restricted access wasn't for medical reasons, per se. Andrews had pushed it through after one too many visits from the Federation had left Chris's heart rate in unacceptable territory according to his standards. Phil had backed him to the hilt; Chris deeply regretted having been unconscious for the show. By all accounts, it had been pretty spectacular, but then, Phil always had loved chewing out idiots.

“What? I can't be here to show a little solidarity?” Kirk waited to see if Chris was going to bite but didn't seem too upset when he didn't, waiting only a moment before admitting, “If I'm here, everybody's too busy gossiping about that to get their panties in a twist if I take an extra hour to sign whatever crap absolutely has to be finalized this minute.”

“They never tell you about the paperwork,” Chris said. “Better learn how to sign in your sleep, or you'll always be a month behind.”

“Thanks for the tip,” Kirk said, as the door opened and one last tech, an ensign by his collar, came in with yet another round of questions. He was painfully young, obviously new to the job, but he ran through his list quickly and with no hesitation. It was going to take a long time before Chris stopped thinking about seven starships of cadets and the pitiful handful who came back, and he thought he saw a flash of the same thing in Kirk's eyes.

“It's quiet here,” Kirk said, after the young ensign had left. “Gives me a chance to breathe in between everybody telling me for the thousandth time how much trust the Federation's showing me.” He picked up what Chris had assumed was a second PADD; upon closer inspection, it proved to be a bound paper book, an antique that Kirk handled with easy familiarity. “Normally, I just sit in here and read until someone throws me out.”

The laugh caught Chris by surprise; it had been long months of grim test results and even grimmer prognoses, and he couldn't remember the last time he'd actually laughed. It came out a little rusty, but felt good anyway. “Jim Kirk, closet reader of the classics--I'm not sure what exactly I should do with that information,” he said, in response to Kirk's raised eyebrow. “I'm sure somebody would pay good money for it, but I'm not sure where to start.”

“Play your cards right and you could get a bidding war going,” Kirk said. “The Fleet crowd that's stroking out about me and the _Enterprise_ would probably give you half the city to keep it quiet.”

“That might be worth it, just to watch them choke on having to talk to me,” Chris mused, smiling without any real pleasure at the expression on Kirk's face. “What? You didn't actually think they'd appreciate my not dying after giving up those codes, did you?”

Kirk's smirk faded into something grim. “That's the problem with Starfleet right there--too many rear-echelon admirals with no idea of what it's like out there, and it's not going to get any less messy now. You'd think they'd--” Kirk stopped abruptly; taking a deep breath, he shrugged and nodded toward the bank of screens monitoring Chris's existence. “Sorry,” he sighed. “I didn't mean to rant at you.”

Chris was happy to note that every reading was still within the acceptable range, but he... just couldn't find the energy to get into a detailed analysis of Starfleet command. He _should_ \--he'd always encouraged his junior officers to speak freely, to acknowledge the political reality of a closed system like the Council and how it affected their careers and lives--and a stubborn part of him insisted he was taking the coward's way out, but the rest of him was willing to let Kirk use the medical crap as an excuse. Just this once.

The silence that fell wasn't quite easy, but Kirk leaned back and held up the book. “Yeah, so if you were thinking about supplementing your pay, now's your chance.”

“If I'm going to make this sale of information convincing, I'll need details,” Chris said, more than a little surprised to find himself playing along. He gestured for Kirk to hand over the book. “The Last of the Mohicans?”

“It's a classic,” Kirk answered, mildly. “Maybe a little stiff, but still, _'One shot, one kill'…_ It's hard to beat if you like that kind of thing.”

“I'll take your word for it,” Chris said, handing the book back. “Never even downloaded the file.”

“You're kidding,” Kirk said. “You've never read it? You're not just, you know, losing things from whatever those slugs did to you?”

“Given that I'd do--and did--just about anything to get out of a lit class, I can pretty much guarantee Nero's not responsible for my not having read your darling.” Chris was tempted to note the stardate; not only had he laughed, he'd voluntarily made a joke. About _Nero_.

“Wait, wait, I'm having a moment here,” Kirk snickered. “Christopher Pike, captain of the flagship, skipping out of class? Another idol bites the dust.”

“Former captain,” Chris said, ignoring the 'idol' part. “And I'm sure you'll recover.” He was enjoying the interaction--he didn't have so many personal visitors that the novelty of actually having a conversation had begun to pall--but the after-effects from the drug therapies, to say nothing of the surgeries, were still kicking his ass. Ten minutes of excitement was about his limit. He laid his head back against the pillows and closed his eyes for a couple of deep breaths.

“Thanks for the hiding place, but I'll clear out and let you rest now,” Kirk said, and when Chris opened his eyes, the other man was on his feet, reaching for the heavy tunic slung over the back of the chair.

“Did I miss somebody throwing you out?” Chris waited until Kirk shrugged, then closed his eyes again. “Don't leave on my account.”

“Nah, I'm not that scared of the paperwork.”

“Stay, Kirk.” Chris actually didn't mean for it to come out like an order, but he could always blame his loss of control on Nero's toxins. “Me having a visitor will make the psych and empath teams happy.”

“I live to serve,” Kirk said after a few seconds, and Chris could hear him settling back in the chair.

“Sorry,” Chris sighed. “I'm not particularly good at this whole healing thing.”

“Really?” Kirk sounded more like himself. “I never would have guessed.”

“Smart ass,” Chris muttered.

“Reporting for duty, sir.”

Chris knew if he opened his eyes he'd be looking at a familiar, maddening smirk; his own mouth quirked up in response. “Ignore me and my moods. Just… go back to your book.”

“And what are you going to do?”

“Lie here and keep my heart rate in an acceptable range so the ridiculous number of personnel assigned to my case don't come flooding in to knock me back out.” Chris shifted into a more comfortable position. “Given that I'm not quite clear of the--and I quote--advanced neural degeneration acceleration due to the toxins and the limitations of the synthetic simulacrums in predicting the full effects of the thus-far-undiscovered natural mutagens, they like it better when I'm not moving around much.”

Kirk flicked his eyes around the small room, eyeing it critically. Chris smiled. If it was a little on the grim side, he didn't think Kirk would blame him. “From the barely restrained excitement, I gather that I'm the mother lode of an ongoing research project.”

“Awesome,” Kirk said, with an impressive amount of sarcasm, even by his own standards.

“I'm less excited about it,” Chris said, dryly. “They do a hell of a drug cocktail when they get going, though. I don't even dream.”

“That explains the quality vegetative state you've got going,” Kirk said. “Seriously, you were more with it when I got to you on the _Narada_ than you've been the last few weeks.”

“It's a theory,” Chris said, shrugging. “I think it's working, but you'd have to check with the medical team to be sure. Other than being bored out of my mind from either being asleep or being forced to watch what passes for standard entertainment, it's not that bad. You carrying on a conversation with me is more excitement than I've had in a month.”

“Maybe we could ramp it up a little.”

“Kirk--”

“Relax, Pike. I'm not going to do anything that'll have Lt. Andrews coming down on my ass.” Kirk paused. “Well, not that way. And,” he sighed. “Probably not the other way either.”

Chris couldn't help his snort at the semi-regretful tone of Kirk's words. “Please, don't let my medical condition stand in the way of your social life, Captain.”

“Nah, I am so not his type,” Kirk said. “And contrary to public opinion, I actually can deal with that, so I'm just going to get on with the plan, which is to sit here and read, like you suggested--only out loud, because your brain is gonna be leaking out your ears pretty soon if all you're doing is watching standard entertainment and sleeping. Besides, we wouldn't want it to get around that our senior officers are lacking in the basics of a classical education, would we?”

“I've seen your records,” Chris muttered. “Lacking in the basics is one way of putting it.”

“Think of it like a non-pharmaceutical sleeping aid,” Kirk suggested, opening the book and flipping to the front.

“You don't have to start over,” Chris said. “It's not going to make a difference to me.”

“Yeah, well, this is the second book, so I'm not really starting at the beginning.” Kirk smiled at him, and Chris was reminded of all the instructor evals he'd had forwarded to him, which all basically said the same thing: _brilliant cadet, serious attitude_. “Trust me, you'll love it even if you are a captive audience.”

“Really,” Chris said through gritted teeth, a little amazed at the man's sheer audacity. Chris was _not_ accustomed to being ignored. “Don't go to any trouble on my account. We could talk--you could bring me up to speed on the latest events.”

“Yeah, like sitting here and getting into the clusterfuck that's currently going on in deep space is going to keep your heart rate acceptable,” Kirk said. “Not that I'm admitting to anything like an irrational fear, but Dr. Boyce holding Lt. Andrews's leash scares the crap out of me. Book it is.”

“Fine,” Chris snapped, not willing to examine too closely why he didn't just run Kirk out of the room. He wouldn't even have to do it himself; one tap on the communicator and his very own attack nurse would take care of everything.

“Terrific,” Kirk said, still with the smile, and sounding every bit as annoyed as Chris. He took a deep breath, though, and dropped his eyes down to the book in his lap. “'It was a feature peculiar to the colonial wars of North America, that the toils and dangers of the wilderness were to be encountered before the adverse hosts could meet. A wide and apparently an impervious boundary of forests…'“

* * * * * *

“Aw, c'mon, Admiral, don't tell me you were trying to hide from me.”

Chris looked up from the flurry of actually getting the hell off the ICU and into a regular room, and grinned at the familiar form lounging just inside the door.

“That's what happens when you don't show up for a week. You miss the geniuses figuring out the last piece of the puzzle,” Chris said. “For which I'm supremely grateful,” he added, to the crowd in the room at large.

“Yeah? They got all the crap cleared out?” Kirk smiled--a real one, not his usual smirk. “Andrews isn't going to know what to do without having to run interference for you.”

“You mean other than getting actual work done?” Chris asked. Kirk stepped out of the way to let the last of the techs leave, and then dragged a chair up to Chris's bed. “He may never forgive me for turning him into a glorified guard dog.”

“Well, there's that,” Kirk said, settling himself in the chair, his hands empty for the first time that Chris could remember.

“What?” Chris arched an eyebrow. “Nothing new in the war to persuade me that my lost appreciation for the classics is misguided and tragic?” Chris had grown used to waking from the drugged sleep at least three times a week to find Kirk in his room, book in hand. Chris had bitched every time; Kirk had continued to ignore him, and somehow Chris ended up listening to the entire book.

“Oh, there's plenty more where that came from,” Kirk assured him. “It was good timing that we finished it, though.”

“The rework's done?” Chris sat up, finally catching on to the undercurrent of excitement Kirk carried with him. The _Enterprise_ had been in spacedock for nearly a third of a standard year, repairing the structural damage inflicted by the _Narada_ and the black hole Nero had become. It had given Kirk time to start sorting through what it meant to be in command, but it had dragged on long enough to make everyone half-crazy.

“The last inspection was this morning. She's cleared for active duty.” Kirk usually lounged in whatever chair he commandeered; today he was a bundle of barely contained energy. He took a deep breath and added, “ _We're_ cleared for the shakedown cruise as soon as we can get everyone on board.”

Chris nodded thoughtfully. “First officer?”

Kirk shook his head. “Not yet. I can go without one for this, but…”

“It's a big decision--”

“No, I'm sure. I'm waiting for him,” Kirk said, and Chris took a not-insignificant amount of satisfaction in the certainty under the quiet tone. Spock had visited--not as often as Kirk, but more than once. He didn't discuss his personal business, and it wasn't something Chris would push, but Kirk's determination would count for a lot in Spock's decision-making process, Chris was sure.

“You're the captain,” Chris said, as much as a reminder as an affirmation. Kirk nodded once, and Chris let him change the subject.

* * * * * *

The _Enterprise_ left on her shakedown cruise four days later, and Chris was transferred to the Fleet rehab facility on the same day. It was earlier than anyone had been willing to commit to, which was a plus, but the effort it took to shift his legs a couple of inches wore him out. He insisted on three-a-day physical therapy sessions, which left him doing little more than sleeping and eating when he wasn't on the mats or in a pool. He ran through physical therapists like they were cannon fodder, but then somebody got smart and Lt. Commander Honoria Parker walked into his room, barely five feet tall in the clogs all the PTs wore.

“Admiral, _sir_ , I've heard you go for plain speaking, so I'll cut through the crap.” She looked him up and down, a mixture of annoyance and challenge. “Why exactly do you feel the need to walk again so badly that you're willing to chew up my staff? Because if it's some kind of residual cowboy crap, I can recommend an excellent psych team to work through it with you, and I can get my team back to helping everybody else.”

Chris's first instinct was to throw her out, but she was the first person who had looked at him with something other than a toxic mixture of pity and hero-worship.

“One good reason,” she said, stepping further inside and closing the door behind her. “A specific, concrete goal and I'll have you assigned to my rotation and I'll see to your rehab personally.”

Chris returned her look with one of his own; to be precise, the one that had been known to clear the bridge of a starship in ten seconds flat. She didn't flinch.

“Three hundred acres outside Mojave, most of which I haven't even seen yet, and almost none of which is going to be accessible unless I go in on foot or horseback.” Chris let himself think about the plans he'd had for exactly five seconds, and then shoved them back in their neatly labeled box so he wouldn't go crazy with the what-ifs. “My ship, the one I watched over from the time she was nothing but a plastic mock-up--I gave her away already, but that doesn't mean there won't be another one someday.”

He had to stop for a second, but his voice was still rock-solid when he said, “That's two; do you want more?”

“No, you're fine.” She nodded once and left the room, and the next morning she was the one who met him on the mats.

“I can't give you any guarantees,” she said by way of greeting. “And you're going to hate me before this is over.”

“I'm not looking for any, and I'm fairly sure the feeling's going to be mutual,” Chris answered, and they got down to it. She was right; by the end of every session he could have shot her at point-blank range, but every day, every hour he could see the increase in his strength even when he couldn't feel it, and there was no way he was spending the rest of his life in that chair, not without giving everything he had to getting out of it.

At Parker's insistence he dropped back to two PT sessions a day, with one day a week completely off, but only because she worked him more ruthlessly than anyone else had ever dreamed of and he could barely function even with the reduced schedule. On his day off, he generally counted it as a win if he managed to get himself into a shower. For the rest of the day he made an effort to catch up with the world outside the rehab facility. Given his schedule, he didn't feel the slightest bit of guilt that his news crawl prioritized all mentions of the _Enterprise_ and her crew over the continuing knife's-edge diplomatic dance with the Romulans or updates on the resettlement of the Vulcan survivors.

Chris knew to the minute when the _Enterprise_ came back from her shakedown cruise. He allowed himself the indulgence of watching and rewatching the footage of her docking at Starbase 1, Mr. Sulu taking her in with a gentle precision that Chris felt in his bones.

It was still a surprise to answer the comm unit a week later to find Jim Kirk on the other end, juggling an armful of bags, with a flurry of activity around the edges of the frame that suggested not even the rehab staff was immune to the Golden Boy aura. Chris buzzed him in.

He'd finally worked it out: Kirk was always around, visiting Chris, because that was what good captains did when their people were tied down to hospital beds. It was what every captain Chris had emulated in his career did; it was what he himself did. It was what he'd expect Kirk to do; he just hadn't quite realized he fell under Kirk's definition of his people.

“They, uh, said it was your day off,” Kirk said, as he shouldered open the door to Chris's suite.

“Do I even want to know who your spies are?” Chris motioned to the small table that was supposedly for eating but, since he usually just downed a protein supplement and collapsed into bed, generally served as his desk. The bags and carriers proved to be packed full of containers from restaurants across the city.

Chris felt his eyebrows go up at just how many different cuisines Kirk had assembled. The kid must have spent half the day running from place to place. “I didn't know what you liked. Or, y'know, if there was stuff you couldn't--Anyway. I got a lot of stuff.”

“You didn't have to go to all this trouble on my account,” Chris said. “Food and I aren't the best of friends these days.”

“Today's my last day of leave, so I'm cramming in as much non-replicator food as I can. It didn't seem to be the day for 'less is more',” Kirk said. He busied himself setting things out; Chris saw chopsticks and bamboo trays, flatbreads and dumplings, and a tall, slightly dusty bottle of dark-green glass. “Oh, uh, I know Bones says bourbon's your drink, but when I was waiting for them to pack everything up there was this bottle of sake just sitting there, so I got that, too.”

Kirk made room for a small set of sake cups amid the containers of food, and Chris could only shake his head.

“Why am I not surprised that you smuggled alcohol into a Fleet hospital?”

“Hey,” Kirk said, with that attitude that said he couldn't believe Chris was making a fuss about his genius idea. “It's good stuff. It's not like it's the swill the riggers always have brewing in the shipyards.”

“No, but my tolerance is shot all to hell.” The bottle was cool and heavy in Chris's hand. “Two shots and the rest of the day will have to move along without me.”

“I, uh, hope I'm not interrupting,” Kirk said, looking suddenly uncomfortable, or as uncomfortable as Jim Kirk ever did. “Sir.”

“It's a little late for that, don't you think?” Chris answered dryly, putting the bottle back on the table. “You're not interrupting anything,” he added. “Like you said, it's my day off. Not a physical therapist in sight.”

“Yeah, I heard you were going for the Federation record in time spent on the mats.” Kirk shrugged. “I mostly meant if you were expecting someone. I know Captain Robbins is still out in the Neutral Zone on the _Yorktown_ , but I don't know about anyone else…”

Chris edged the chair closer to the table and accepted the chopsticks Kirk gave him.

“Phil likes to time his visits for when I'm too out of breath to bitch at him.” Chris took a bite and kept his expression calm, even if his taste buds were doing a happy dance at getting something other than the protein sludge he usually fed them. “The Admiralty tends toward visiting during the general work week; everyone in the Fleet who's not stationed on the _Enterprise_ is out keeping up appearances with the Klingons; and there's not much family left, at least not ones close enough to trek all the way in here on an average Sunday afternoon.”

“So, one round of this isn't going to engage the Federation media spin?” Kirk held up the sake and Chris gave in and let him pour. It was such an easy capitulation, he wasn't even going to give himself the out of blaming it on Kirk's charm. And the sake _was_ prime.

The shakedown cruise had gone as well as could be expected; no crew members were seriously injured or lost, and no one could have anticipated the unfortunate incident on K-7. Chris was careful not to offer his opinion as anything other than that; the last thing he wanted was for the _Enterprise_ to be captained by someone looking over his shoulder at a ghost. Kirk took his advice thoughtfully, asking for clarification and amplification or arguing his point without being defensive. It was, Chris reflected, a welcome break in his daily routine, and one that he was enjoying greatly. He ate the last three samosas before he realized it; Kirk had a smirk hidden behind his hand.

“I thought you and food weren't on friendly terms,” Kirk said.

“I'd be happy to blame it on Starfleet,” Chris answered. “They may be able to build ships that defy description, but they haven't cracked the food thing yet.”

“I'm not going to complain about being out for a year, but yeah.” Kirk nodded, and beat Chris to the last of the injera. “I've eaten so much in the last week, Bones might even stop bitching about how little I'm massing.”

“Looks like eating isn't the only thing you've been doing,” Chris said, nodding to the pile of unopened carriers lying in an untidy heap near the door.

“Yeah,” Kirk sighed. “I kind of lost my head with those.” He hesitated for a second before shrugging and crossing the room. He crouched on the floor and opened them one after another, each packed full of bound paper books. “Pretty stupid for somebody who's shipping out in a couple of days with a 30-kilo personal mass allowance, but the dealer was only going to sell them in a lot and I couldn't walk away.”

“Of course you couldn't.”

“They're the first… things I've spent credit on since I enlisted,” Kirk murmured, his hands stroking almost reverently over the books. “Go basejump off Mount Hood, blow a month's stipend at the craps table, yeah, none of that's a problem. But I haven't bought anything since I ditched my bike.”

Chris thought of the sleek electrocycle Kirk had ridden into the Riverside shipyard, and the stunned look on the dock worker's face as Kirk had tossed him the keys. It hadn't even been four years, but it was another lifetime.

“Well, what did you get?” Chris wrenched his brain back to the present and made his way across the room to where Kirk sat surrounded by stacks of books.

“Like you care,” Kirk answered, grinning.

“Maybe you converted me,” Chris said. Kirk snorted, but dumped an armload of antiques into Chris's lap and went to get the sake.

“At least your impulse spending is portable. Mine tends to come in hectares.” Chris wasn't thinking about that, though, so he kept his attention strictly on the room he was sitting in and the company he was sharing. He allowed himself another half-glass of sake and determined that yes indeed, his alcohol tolerance was shot to hell. Kirk worked his way through his loot, finally setting aside three of the books to take with him.

“I should probably get on finding someplace to store these,” Kirk said, eyeing the stacks thoughtfully. “If I had time, I'd sell about half of them, but... Maybe Bones has enough space in his storage locker to wedge them in.”

“Leave them here,” Chris offered. Kirk looked up at him, startled. Chris looked back, something in him pleased at managing to surprise the younger man. And possibly himself, too, especially since he didn't think his offer had much, if anything, to do with the sake. “I doubt McCoy's storage locker has the climate control necessary for things like this,” he continued, evenly. “I can have someone messenger them over to the apartment I keep here in the city.”

“Yeah?” There was a reason Jim Kirk had the reputation he did, and Chris was certain the smile he was receiving was at least partially responsible for it. “That'd be--thanks. I--thanks.”

“You're welcome.” Chris moved back over to deal with the detritus of their take-out feast. “Get them sorted the way you want them, and I'll see what I need to do with them.” Chris had no idea what might be involved but he had faith in Ensign Colt's research skills.

Kirk nodded, still looking bemused, and started sorting the books into stacks while Chris cleaned up.

“I'm just going to leave these here,” Kirk said, pushing his stacks into a corner and dropping notes on top of each. “They're not in your way, right?”

“They're fine.” The room was small, but built for the chair; plus, Chris was still accustomed to ship's quarters, even with being planetside for the last few years. Plus, he was sure Colt would have answers for him before he got back from his first session, so he didn't foresee having to navigate around the stacks for long.

“If you're sure,” Kirk said, more serious than he'd been the entire night. “I'll transfer some credit for packing materials--”

“Jim,” Chris said. “It's nothing; I have the space and I probably don't want to know how much credit you dropped on them. It'd be stupid to let them be damaged because you didn't have a place to store them.”

“Thank you,” Kirk said, still thoughtful and quiet--which was, Chris reflected later, at least part of the reason he was taken by surprise when Kirk kneeled up and pressed his mouth to Chris's, a slow, deliberate kiss that reset everything Chris thought he knew about Jim Kirk. He tasted of the sake, sweet and heady, his mouth hot and lush against Chris's. Against every scrap of good sense he had, Chris let himself be lost himself in the rush. One kiss turned into two, and then three; each one building on the one before, each one stripping off another layer. Kirk shifted closer and Chris found his own hands fitting easily to the curve of Kirk's jaw, thumb stroking a slow, careful path along one cheekbone as he forced himself to pull back.

Chris drew in a deep breath, but before he could say anything Kirk was on his feet, backing away from where Chris sat, hesitating only when he got to the door of the suite.

“Leaping without looking--you admire that quality, remember?” Kirk said, deadly serious now, and the door hummed closed behind him.

Chris sat and looked at the door and the books stacked neatly on the floor, and the bottle of sake next to them. It was a long time before he turned the chair around and made his way into the bedroom.

When he got back from his morning session, Colt had taken care of boxing and shipping the books--all except one, _Treasure Island_ , which was on his desk along with the sake. There was a message on his PADD, originating from the _Enterprise_ , that read, _I figured the story of a revenge-obsessed lunatic was probably hitting a little too close to home, so Moby Dick was out, but you can't go wrong with pirates and treasure, right? JTK_.

The book sat on the table for a week, until Chris nearly spilled a protein shake on it and told himself it needed to be someplace safer. He wasn't at all surprised to find himself putting it carefully on the small table next to his bed.


	2. Chapter 2

  
The _Yorktown_ came in a month after Chris graduated to the bio-mechanical braces that allowed him to at least give the appearance of walking on his own. He and Commander Parker were still working together twice a day, but he'd moved out of the rehab facility and into rooms on base. Still not his own apartment, but he was so bloody grateful to be out of a hospital environment it didn't matter that he was an admiral in the middle of the ensigns and junior lieutenants.

Number One dotted all the I's and crossed all the T's, as usual, but as soon as she was done with the Admiralty--and Chris had no doubt it was she who was done, not the converse--she was in the rehab center, in the middle of his afternoon session.

Commander Parker did not normally like, encourage, or otherwise permit guests during her sessions, but Number One was Number One and she wasn't going to let a little thing like that stop her. Chris expected at least some fireworks, but Parker only saluted smartly, and said, “Captain Robbins--it is very good to finally meet you in person.”

“Let me guess,” Chris said, watching the two of them confer. “Phil put you down as cleared for privileged information while he held my medical POA.”

“Of course,” Number One said. “Commander Parker would hardly share information otherwise, regardless of my rank or association with you.”

“Of course,” Chris echoed, and went to shower and change.

“Dinner?” Number One took his measure with a single, swift glance, the one that never missed anything. He must have passed, because she continued, “It's been so long since we've had anything not processed on-board, I think even I've been dreaming about food, and you know I never notice what I'm eating.”

“Your choice, then,” Chris answered, smiling, and when she arched an eyebrow in that familiar way, amended, “Or--you tell me what you want, and I'll pick the place where we get it.”

“That's probably better,” Number One laughed. “For a moment, I thought you'd forgotten the last time.”

“It would take more than a triple dose of neurotoxins to forget _that_ incident,” Chris said, dryly. 'Disaster' was probably a more appropriate word, but there wasn't any need to rub it in. He checked in with Colt, signed off on the three things that couldn't wait, and ducked into the transport Number One had corralled. When pressed, she claimed she could happily eat anything, so Chris gave the driver the address of a place down by the water run by a retired quartermaster who treated anyone in a Starfleet uniform as his personal charges.

Number One hadn't been kidding; she demolished a good third of the menu without pausing for more than the most basic social pleasantries. Over coffee, she finally slowed down and they could compare notes about life in the post-Nero universe. The Romulans were still on edge; the Klingons were pushing every limit they could find; and even with the shipyards going full blast, it was going to take years to replace all the ships they'd lost over Vulcan.

“The only reason we came in was to upgrade the dilithium chambers,” Number One said, stirring her coffee slowly. “It's as bad as I've ever seen it out there, Christopher. And it's not going to get much better, not until we get more ships launched.”

Chris nodded; he got the daily aggregates from the surviving Fleet ships, and the reports were never anything less than tense. Frankly, he was surprised there hadn't been an upswing in mental health issues; it was difficult to keep crew morale stable under ongoing high alert conditions, and the longer this dragged out the more on edge everyone was going to be.

“Your boy is doing fine, though,” Number One added, almost as an aside. Chris half-choked on his coffee. “It's good to see the _Enterprise_ on active duty.”

“ _My_ boy?”

“Kirk,” Number One said, looking at him as though he were insane. “ _Your_ hand-picked replacement for _your_ ship.”

“I wasn't the only--Kirk's advancement was seconded by not only Commander Spock, but by half the admirals on the promotions board.” The other half had fought it viciously--but that was unsurprising, given the circumstances. Chris took a deep breath. “He's hardly my boy.”

Number One kept right on looking at him, one eyebrow arched in the way that meant things were not adding up in that cool, logical brain of hers. On the bridge, Chris valued that look: it meant his XO was on the job, looking for loopholes in whatever situation they found themselves embroiled in. It had saved his ass more than once. Sitting in a cheap diner five blocks off-base, somehow discussing his personal life, it meant the same thing--Number One was on the job--but Chris was fairly certain he wasn't going to like the outcome nearly as much. When she spoke, though, her voice was neutral.

“Dr. Boyce mentioned that the captain had spent considerable time visiting with you,” Number One said. “I'm sorry; I assumed that meant you'd forged a friendship.”

“So did I,” Chris muttered.

“Oh?” The eyebrow got higher.

“He kissed me.”

“And?” She made an impatient gesture at him and checked the time. “I have less than an hour before I need to be back for my shuttle, Christopher. I know perfectly well that you've dealt with at least a half-dozen junior officers, male and female, who've had crushes on you. You handle it far better than I'll ever manage to, so I'll repeat. _And_?”

“And nothing,” Chris growled. “I assumed we had one thing going; it would appear he thought differently, and he was gone before anything got resolved.”

“Oh,” she murmured. “ _Oh_.” If it had been anyone else, Chris would have walked away from the look in her eyes, but they had been through things together that no one else understood. “Chris--” she started.

“Don't,” Chris said. “Just--don't.”

“All right,” she said, after a few seconds. “I won't, but… don't _you_ , either.”

“Meaning?”

“You're very good at ignoring issues that can't be resolved; don't assign Captain Kirk to that category.”

“Don't you have a shuttle to catch?” Chris muttered.

“In fifty-three minutes,” she answered. “If we call for transport now and handle the bill at the same time, I'll have time for dessert, which I've been anticipating since the _Yorktown_ came into space dock, but this is--”

“Thank you, Captain.” Chris braced his hands flat on the table and pushed himself to his feet to go get the check with what even he could recognize as poor grace; he couldn't seem to modulate it, though. “Heard and acknowledged; no further discussion needed.”

“Christopher,” she said, laying her hand on his wrist. For the first time in their long years together she sounded tired and strained, and Chris was ashamed that he was essentially throwing a tantrum with his most trusted friend. He turned his hand so he could squeeze hers in an apology and got a grip on himself.

“I'm fine,” he told her. “You don't need to spend your last bit of time arguing with me, especially when we both know you're right.”

“No,” she sighed. “Whether or not I'm right, I'm presuming on our friendship, overstepping--”

“No,” Chris said. “You're not. I'm... not dealing with things well these days.”

“You're here, and sane,” she said, her voice unexpectedly fierce. “I don't know many others who would be, and I am so _grateful_ for that. The rest of it will work itself out.”

It was probably best that Chris didn't know exactly how to respond to that because he wasn't sure he trusted himself not to break down completely if he opened his mouth. Number One nodded once, as though she understood, and he pulled himself together enough to say, “I'm going to go personally put in the order for one Death By Chocolate, so they know we're on a deadline.”

“I'll deal with the transport.” Number One squeezed his hand one last time before letting it go. “Get whatever it is you're trying to kill me with to go so I can eat on the way if necessary.”

Chris ordered and paid, ignoring Number One's mutterings about ridiculously old-fashioned chivalry, and they did indeed take the seven layers of assorted chocolate confections with them in the cab, Number One blithely ignoring the _No Food or Drink_ sign blinking at her in increasing lumens and frequency the entire way.

She hesitated for the briefest of moments before she got out of the cab. On anyone else it would have been meaningless, but Chris knew it was a sign of uncertainty for her; as uncharacteristic as it was unexpected. Her expression was calm when she turned back, though.

“I did mean what I said earlier, Christopher.” She was poised and self-possessed as always, her uniform as sharp as when she'd taken it out of the press that morning, every inch the captain of a starship. No one seeing her would have believed she'd just inhaled eighteen ounces of the finest chocolate available on any world with little more than her fingers and the occasional use of a spoon. “Don't put whatever it is that's happening in your personal life into stasis simply because you can't control it.” Her mouth twitched up into a half-smile. “And, yes, I am quite aware of the irony in my being the one to say that.”

“Heard and acknowledged, Number One,” Chris said, this time with all due respect and affection. “Safe skies, Captain.”

“Admiral.” She saluted him crisply and strode off toward the main concourse.

* * * * * *

Whether or not Chris shoved Jim Kirk into the ignore-at-all-costs box in the back of his mind was very nearly moot. The final phases of re-learning to walk without the bio-braces, or exo-supports, or even so much as a cane, took physical effort like Chris couldn't remember ever having to exert--layered on top of a mental focus that left him as exhausted as being in command during a battle did. What little energy he had left went toward monitoring the delicate balancing act that was the impasse between the Federation, the Klingons, and the Romulans. It continued to waver on the knife's edge of outright warfare, the news grim enough to reach all the way into the gyms and natatoriums that Chris spent ninety percent of his waking hours in. Every Starfleet shipyard was working double-crewed shifts, 24/7, no downtime at all, and it was still not enough.

Given the gravity of the situation, Chris paused for nothing more than a token celebration when he was cleared to return to active duty, and that only because Ensign Colt took matters into her own hands and organized a small gathering at his new office. It wasn't a large suite, but it was well-located and while the view it boasted wasn't the Bay, it also wasn't the waste processing plant or a brick wall. Chris had no doubt that was due to Colt's attention to detail and stubborn perseverance in the face of the astounding number of forms that needed to be filed and cross-filed. If it had been up to him, he would have lost patience two rounds in, which was more than likely what the system was designed to promote. The system had yet to meet the likes of Ensign Colt.

“It's important, sir,” Colt said as she went over final details with him. “It puts the right face on your tenure; makes it apparent that you're recovered and ready to contribute.” Chris couldn't argue with that, and it wasn't her fault he was back at the Academy. “Plus,” she continued, “it's not every day I can comm my parents with proof of me working with a professor emeritus, even if I do leave out the part where I know you'd rather be almost anywhere else.”

Chris surveyed the tastefully decorated rooms with some bemusement, especially the discreet grouping of images of him from every ship he'd served on, including the _Enterprise_. It projected a aura of distinction that he was sure more than a few of those pictured would be happy to dispute. There was nothing untrue about any of what was on display, but it was heavily... curated. To say the least.

“What was your concentration at the Academy again, Ensign?”

“Diplomatic relations, sir!”

* * * * * *

Moving out of base housing and back into his own apartment was more worthy of celebration, Chris thought, but even that seemed cavalier. He settled for more of the bourbon Dr. McCoy had sent and a night of doing nothing but sitting in his own study and carefully reviewing the contracts on the land he'd managed to buy just before the Fleet had deployed to Vulcan and the universe had changed irrevocably.

The first mention of the anniversary of the attacks caught Chris completely off guard; he found himself frozen in front of the giant vid screen on campus, unable to look away from the images flashing quickly across it. That was only a teaser for the coverage planned to last the entire day of the attack on Earth, so it ended quickly and Chris managed to get himself moving again. He got all the way back to his office before the first flashback hit. It slammed through him, so vivid and intense that he was retching from the dense metallic smell of the ores the Narada had been built to mine.

Ensign Colt was gone for the day so there was no one to comment on Chris leaving a little earlier than normal, and Chris was curt enough with the cadet assigned to drive him that the trip home was accomplished in utter silence. Bay Area traffic being what it was, it was dark by the time they arrived; Chris was grateful. He could take the long flight of steps up to his door at a crawl, moving slowly enough that he made it without throwing up from the nausea and disorientation and--equally important--without any of his neighbors noticing. He spent the night unpacking and cataloging the books Jim Kirk had bought and Colt had shipped to his apartment, and managed to resist the siren call of the bourbon. He finally sank into his bed a little before dawn, and if he was more than a little short with his seminar students later that morning, he was still perfectly rational and that would have to be enough.

After that, the lead-up to the day itself ground on interminably. Chris avoided all newsfeeds and thought he was handling it reasonably well--no further flashbacks, at least in public; never mind the nightmares that he'd thought he'd gotten under control months earlier, before he ever left the Fleet hospitals--until he came upon Ensign Colt deep in a furiously whispered confrontation with Admiral Komack's aide, a tall Andorian, the tone of which was so glacial that Chris was surprised there wasn't a localized weather front.

“This is not negotiable,” the aide hissed, shooting Chris a venomous look as ze swept out of the office. Ensign Colt looked very nearly ready to follow and commit violence upon hir; Chris cleared his throat and caught her attention before things escalated and Ushaan could be invoked. The last thing her career needed was an Andorian duel to deal with.

“If it's not negotiable, you'd best brief me now.”

“Of course it's negotiable, sir; _everything_ is. I can--”

“Ensign Colt,” Chris said, letting a little of the command tone slip into his voice. “Fill me in.”

It wasn't all that dire, Chris thought, as she bit her lip and complied. There would--of course--be a day full of official ceremonies honoring those who lost their lives over Vulcan, and Chris, as sole surviving captain of the fleet of Academy-crewed ships, would be required to be in attendance. Silent attendance, as Starfleet still wasn't quite sure what to do about the part where it had been Chris who'd given up the satellite defense codes, but attendance nonetheless.

“It's an insult, sir,” Ensign Colt was saying. “They're playing both ends against the middle and they don't care who they trample--”

“Well, yes, Ensign,” Chris said, dryly. “They've been known to do that.” He moved slowly past her and into his office, more tired than he wanted to admit. If he wasn't reliving his time on the _Narada_ in his dreams, he was trapped in that endless few seconds of the _Enterprise_ dropping out of warp speed over Vulcan, right into the carnage of very nearly the entire Academy upper class. Either way, he wasn't getting much sleep.

“I know that, sir,” Ensign Colt said. “That doesn't make it right.”

“I appreciate your advocacy, Ensign--” Chris truly did; support from his junior officers was never something he took lightly, no matter whether he was on the bridge of a starship or walking the Academy halls. “But we may as well see what the schedule looks like.”

She hesitated long enough that Chris thought he might have to make it a direct order, but then she nodded and tapped her PADD, forwarding the file and leaving Chris to review it alone. It was predictably crammed full of events, with every political figure on the planet angling to be seen. Just thinking about the pontifications and posturings, the complete lack of understanding of the sacrifices made on so many levels, made the walls close in on him.

It wasn't a full-blown flashback or fugue state, but enough of a gray area that he wasn't surprised to find Ensign Colt eyeing him with concern when he came out of it. She didn't say anything, though, only disappeared back into her work area. Chris could hear her working the replicator, and when she reappeared she had a tray of food in her hands.

“It occurs to me that I haven't seen you eat on campus in.... longer than I can remember.” She didn't say that she didn't trust him to be eating off-campus, but her tone rendered the omission moot. “High nutrition, but no overt flavorings or odors,” she added, sliding the tray onto the small conference table next to his desk. ”Some texture.”

“Boring, you mean.”

“Less likely to trigger a reaction,” Ensign Colt corrected, almost primly. “I realize that the notes Lt. Andrews passed along to me only scratch the surface of mitigating strategies, but since my mother's reaction to anything like this involved tea and toast, I'm taking it that bland and soothing is the way to go.” She smoothed the cuffs of her uniform, her tell that she was uncomfortable but forging ahead nonetheless. “I'm probably overstepping my bounds, sir, but... “

“No,” Chris sighed, pushing himself to his feet. “You're right.” He could hear Phil's voice in the back of his head, a tirade about idiots not taking care of what they could control and letting that make what they couldn't control worse. Chris surveyed the contents of the tray without enthusiasm, but settled himself in the small chair and began working his way through the plates methodically. “We might as well go through that schedule while I do this,” Chris said. “I'm not eating for enjoyment at this point, and there's no sense in you having to sit around and wait until I'm finished.” Once she'd settled herself across the table, Chris added, “Besides, this way you don't have to pretend not to be checking to see how much I'm actually eating.”

“There is that,” Ensign Colt agreed, and began to review the logistics of how Chris could get from one event to the next, and where they might stash the bio-braces should he need them during the day.

* * * * * *

Not that Chris had any question as to Ensign Colt's efficiency--or ability to run the world, if it came to that--but it was proven beyond all doubt in the run-up to, and the actual day of, the anniversary of the attacks. Once he had communicated his intent to go along with whatever the Admiralty wanted, no one got through her to Chris in any way, shape, or form. No one. She fielded all inquiries, made all the arrangements, and, as far as Chris could tell, slept at her office the entire week before to make sure all risks were mitigated before they became issues.

That left Chris with nothing to do but teach his classes and figure out how to make it through the day itself. Once they got over their somewhat unflattering surprise that he was contacting them--a reaction he supposed he deserved, given his less-than-cooperative attitude while hospitalized--the psych team offered a full array of pharmaceutical options, of which Chris accepted only sleeping aids. They at least meant he'd be physically functional. He was counting on his ability to dissociate himself from the rest of it--he hadn't risen through the Starfleet ranks as quickly as he had without being able to turn off the all-too-frequent urge to throttle an idiot or two, and he didn't see that this was much different.

On the anniversary morning, Ensign Colt arrived at Chris's apartment long before dawn and eyed his appearance critically. Her uniform was, of course, perfectly pressedl; and she had twisted her hair into a sedate knot, not a single strand of red out of place. She was strictly regulation except for the wisp of white under her sleeve at the wrist. Chris's grandmother had done that, tucked a tissue or a handkerchief away for when she knew she might need them.

“It's going to be a long day, sir,” Ensign Colt said, as she saw him looking. “I have full supplies with Petty Officer Chang, who'll be driving us, but I thought I should be prepared.”

“Of course,” Chris said. He'd been between surgeries when she'd been assigned as his aide, but he thought he remembered that she'd been in an Honors program at the Academy, an accelerated track, and he wondered how many friends she'd lost over Vulcan. It wasn't something that could be discussed, certainly not on this of all days, but Chris resolved to look back over her file soon.

Petty Officer Chang was also perfectly put together, and the salutes he snapped out to both Chris and Ensign Colt were crisp and sharp. Once Chris and Colt were settled, he eased into the street and hovered at the crossing.

“Where to, ma'am?”

If Chris was mildly surprised Colt hadn't ensured that Chang had the entire schedule memorized, he was somewhat shocked when she hesitated before answering, and very nearly floored when she turned to him, biting her lip.

“Sir,” she said, quietly. “There is an unofficial... gathering on campus at dawn. It's not on your schedule--this time was supposed to be a final briefing and a chance for you to eat, before the official memorials begin, but...”

“Mia--Ensign Colt--and I were hoping to attend.” Petty Officer Chang met Chris's eyes in the rear-view mirror, and Chris wondered who he'd lost. “I can drive you to your office if that's where you'd rather be; we'll be back in plenty of--”

“No. I can go,” Chris said. “There's no sense in the two of you zig-zagging back and forth. This day is going to be enough of a clusterfuck as it is.”

“Sir, are you sure--this is already an ambitious schedule; adding something that's not strictly necessary--”

“I have the feeling this might be the one thing that _is_ necessary today,” Chris said. When she opened her mouth to argue further, he added, “Unless I wouldn't be welcome.”

“No, _sir_ ,” Chang said, looking at Colt. “That's not it at all.”

“It's that we--were here, sir,” Colt finally said. “We lost people, but... we weren't directly involved. We haven't spent the last year learning how to walk again.”

“All the more reason to be there, Mia,” Chris said. He nodded to Chang and then settled back into the car and let his mind go blank.

As they came over the campus, Chris could see people clustered down by the water--a quiet mass that grew steadily even as they watched. Chang brought them in as close as was practical, which was still a fair distance. Chris knew he'd probably regret it before the end of the day, but he found the silent walk in the chilly darkness nearly perfect and was grateful he could make it. Colt and Chang flanked him, though he didn't think anyone noticed him in the crush. He accepted a candle from a painfully young cadet and, a few minutes later, tilted it into the one Colt carried to transfer the flame from hers. The crowd remained silent, the small, flickering lights spreading slowly from candle to candle even as the night faded above them.

There were no speeches or organized events. They just stood next to the water, amid the trees on campus, holding candles and watching the sun rise. Chris supposed there was someone in charge, someone who took the initiative to blow out the candles once the sun was fully up and visible, but he couldn't see who that might have been. As the sunlight spread across the campus, the candles were extinguished. It wasn't completely quiet--people moved to greet friends, and there was a low undercurrent of quiet weeping--but the near-total silence was as affecting as it was effective.

Chris pretended not to see Ensign Colt wiping tears away; Chang was stoical but not unaffected, and Chris himself didn't have the faintest idea what was crashing through him, only that it had been a good idea to come.

“My suitemates,” Colt said, tucking her tissue back up under her sleeve. “They were all assigned to different ships, and--when the first casualty lists were posted, I remember thinking that at least they all weren't together, but... it didn't matter, in the end, did it? It took the Academy a couple of days to re-situate everyone who was left, and it was very... quiet until then.”

Chris nodded and spared a brief thought for how empty the dorms must have been. Petty Officer Chang collected both their candles and handed them off to another baby-faced cadet.

“My sister was on the _Farragut_ ,” he said. “Engineering.”

“She would have been serving under Commander Ivanov,” Chris said, remembering the booming laugh and impressively vulgar vocabulary. “Learning not just how to run a ship, but how to brew possibly the most foul rotgut ever known.”

“She did say the section parties were pretty lively,” Chang answered.

“I can believe it,” Chris said, letting the crowd slowly sweep him along. Colt wasn't obsessively checking the time, so he wasn't running late yet and could take the time to let the better memories see the light of day.

Caught up in those memories, Chris at first didn't recognize the Vulcan standing in front of him. It wasn't until the Vulcan said, “Greetings, Admiral. My son has nothing but the highest praise at serving on your staff,” that Chris realized it was Sarek, Spock's father, and that he'd clearly sought Chris out. That was surprising enough, but nothing could have prepared Chris for the invitation Sarek personally issued to tour the new Vulcan colony as part of a delegation from the Academy.

“We will, of course, make all arrangements with the Admiralty and make it perfectly clear that you are our choice.”

“You're sure about that,” Chris said, after a few seconds. He kept his voice down, low and even, but even so, Ensign Colt was watching them with narrowed eyes, for all the world like she was expecting Sarek, respected member of the Vulcan High Council, to attack Chris. “I'm not exactly who the politicians would want to see on that delegation.”

“While I understand that human politics are fraught with emotion, I do not believe that anyone would begrudge the Vulcan High Council this express request. I would merely have to mention how poor it might look if word was spread that the wishes of a people struggling to rebuild their world were denied.”

“Very Machiavellian of you,” Chris said, dryly. “I didn't think Vulcans went in for that sort of thing.”

“I would merely be pointing out the obvious, Admiral.” Sarek arched an eyebrow; Chris could see where Spock got the expression from. “It was not my idea, however; I must give credit to my colleague for the notion.” He nodded toward the fringe of the crowd where another, older Vulcan stood. Sarek didn't name him, but he didn't need to. “He felt the request would best come from me, as he is a stranger to you, for all that he served with your counterpart in his world.”

“I see,” Chris said. Before he could ask more, Sarek inclined his head, still watching Chris with that special Vulcan expression that passed for curiosity.

“If you would rather not travel just yet, I can assure you it will not cause a diplomatic incident.”

“No,” Chris said, slowly. “I'd be honored to visit.”

“We would be honored to host you,” Sarek said. “Our embassy will be in contact.” He strode off toward the other Spock, who inclined his head to Chris before they disappeared into the crowd.

“Sir?” Ensign Colt was practically wringing her hands. “Sir, I'm so sorry, but we have to leave _now_ or you'll be late to the invocation. Petty Officer Chang went on ahead to warm up the engines.”

“I'm with you, Ensign,” Chris said. They made their way as quickly as possible back to where Chang was waiting for them, and Chris very deliberately did not think about how much slower top speed was now. He kept his mind firmly on the fact that he was indeed walking under his own power; no braces, and no goddamn chair. He might not end the day that way, but he at least started it on his own two feet.

* * * * * *

The day ground on, every bit as enervating as Chris had thought it would be. He stood in the background at the opening of the new memorial, accepted the salutes of the honor guard at the eternal flame that burned for all who never came home, and laid a ceremonial wreath on the steps of the Academy. Chang got him from one place to the next with time to spare, and Colt had more things stashed in the transport than Chris would have believed possible; everything from food and drink to drops for their eyes. When he caught the sleeve of his uniform on the jagged edge of a makeshift stage, she actually produced a needle and thread and re-sewed the small tear on the way to the next event.

Somehow, though, a small bit of the peace of the morning stayed with him, and he was profoundly grateful for that. It was late in the day, only one ceremony to go, when Chris caught sight of Sarek again, and was pleased to find that they were seated next to each other on one end of the enormous stage that had been erected in the city.

“Always good to see a friendly face,” Chris murmured as they took their places. Sarek murmured something that sounded like he agreed, but the introductions had begun, so Chris moved into deliberate dissociation to get through it all. It wasn't the worst of the day's events, but it was one more drop in the bucket of everything Chris disliked about Starfleet; everything he actively worked to counteract in his own commands.

Afterwards, Sarek deliberately waited for Chris to make his slow, and moving on toward painful, way down the stairs at the side of the stage, his expression betraying no impatience or restlessness.

“You're done for the day?” Chris asked, as he finally navigated the last steps and reached solid ground. The assorted officials clustered around melted away as Chris drew near, but he was ground down enough by the day to simply be grateful not to have to speak to them. “Or have you been press-ganged into more official appearances?”

“I have indeed been the recipient of a fair number of invitations for the evening,” Sarek said, as they moved off toward where the drivers and transports were staged and waiting. “However, since I do not often have the chance to see Spock, I declined them all in favor of a more familial end to this day.”

It said a fair amount about how well Chris had shut out the official world that he'd missed the news of the _Enterprise_ being Earthside, but before he could formulate any kind of a polite answer, Spock himself had materialized out of the crowd and was greeting his father.

And, of course, Jim Kirk was right behind him.

Given that it had been an extraordinarily long and difficult day for everyone, Chris took everything that stormed through him at the sight of Kirk and slammed it down and away from the surface. He accepted the salutes from both Spock and Kirk and managed to inquire about their latest missions with something close to professional courtesy. He didn't hear a word of what Spock told him in reply, but he didn't think Kirk was listening either.

As they moved slowly toward the waiting transports, Chris heard himself carrying on a not particularly significant conversation with Spock and Sarek. If they had been anyone but Vulcans, Chris would have classified it as small talk, but Vulcans didn't do that. It was still as inconsequential as possible. The entire time, he remained acutely conscious of Jim Kirk following along silently.

“I am most pleased to see you, Admiral,” Spock said, hanging back as Sarek strode off to his transport. “I had not thought our paths would cross so easily today.” He hesitated a moment before adding, “I offer my congratulations on your recovery thus far, and most sincere good wishes for a continuance of the same--though I am quite aware that it is primarily due to your own nature and determination.”

“Thank you, Spock.” Chris managed to refrain from smiling. “It was good to see you, too.”

Chris could see Colt and Chang not far down the line, close enough that he didn't need to wait for them to pull forward, but before he could make his escape--and yes, he acknowledged, if only to himself, he _was_ looking to escape--Kirk finally spoke up.

“A moment of your time, sir?”

Intellectually, Chris knew it was probably better to get whatever it was out in the open, but that still didn't mean he had any desire to have the conversation right then.

“Is it entirely necessary, Captain?”

“We're here for seventy-two hours, sir. I just need two minutes of your time, but it doesn't have to be right now.”

“Fine,” Chris sighed.

“About last time, sir,” Kirk started, and Chris felt his patience snap.

“I do actually value leaping before looking, Kirk. I just tend to value it a lot more if it's not followed by a no-holds-barred retreat.”

Kirk flushed at the words. Chris hadn't actually meant for them to come out as harshly as they had, but it was too late to do anything about that.

“Sir, Chang is waiting--oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt,” Colt said, belatedly looking up from her PADD. “I can--”

“That's fine, Colt,” Chris said. “Captain Kirk was just leaving.”

“Admiral,” Kirk said, snapping out a salute and barely waiting for Chris to return it before he spun on his heel and stalked off. Colt blinked a couple of times, but otherwise didn't mention the somewhat strained atmosphere.

“You were saying?”

“Oh--yes,” Colt said, tapping at her PADD. “Admiral Barnett asked if you could drop by his office, and then we're done for the day.”

“Small mercies, Ensign,” Chris sighed. “And on that topic, you can cut out now.”

“Sir--”

“Ensign, this has been quite the day, and you've performed admirably. I wouldn't have gotten through it without you--at least not without punching someone--so you are done and dismissed, with my thanks. Chang can get me where I need to be.”

For a second, Colt looked like she was about to argue, so he added, “Trust me, Mia. Some days you don't have a choice--but when you do, it's better to figure out how to stop and process, rather than go until you drop.”

“Yes, sir,” Colt finally said. “But you should take your own advice.”

“I... will try,” Chris said. “Thank you.”

Barnett didn't have an official reason for seeing Chris, only personal; they drank a shot in memory of everyone they'd lost, and then Chris made his excuses before one shot could turn into twenty. Chang drove him home, a long and tedious journey with traffic snarled hopelessly, but it was quiet and relatively peaceful with just the two of them, and Chris thought Chang appreciated the silence as much as Chris did.

“Do you need me to stop on the way, sir? Something for dinner?”

“No, Mr. Chang. I do have a functioning replicator,” Chris said. “Please assure Ensign Colt that I have managed over the years without her.”

“Yes, sir,” Chang answered, grinning. “She takes her job very seriously.”

“I appreciate that.” Chris smiled back. “Be sure to let her know that, too, when you check in with her.” Chang made the last turn onto Chris's street, which was quiet and empty except for the flashy cycle parked at the foot of Chris's steps and the man lounging against the retaining wall, carriers at his feet.

“Looks like your dinner's here anyway, sir,” Chang said, pulling up.

“Yes, it does,” Chris said, sighing. He thought about mentioning that Chang didn't need to relay the information that the captain of the _Enterprise_ had apparently taken a second job as a takeout delivery boy in his spare time, but that would only send it out on the gossip line with even greater urgency, so he just thanked Chang and got out to deal with whatever the hell Kirk had in mind this time.

“Yeah, so, I couldn't really tell if that last thing you said was an invitation or a dare,” Kirk said, straightening up and crossing his arms. “But then I figured it didn't really matter either way.” He'd ditched his uniform somewhere and wore an old, faded Academy T-shirt and equally faded jeans, with a leather bomber jacket over everything in deference to the ever-mercurial Bay Area weather. Chris's own uniform might have given him a psychological boost in whatever game Kirk was running now, but mostly Chris wanted to be out of the high collar and heavy cloth.

“At least you brought food,” Chris said, and Kirk shrugged.

“It's nothing great, but I haven't eaten since... I don't remember when. My body clock's fucked to hell and back.”

“Well, then you better bring it inside,” Chris said, and started the long climb up the steps to his front door.

“So, is this some condition of your PT?” Kirk kept pace with Chris easily, not at all like he could be bounding up the endless expanse. “They let you out of a session a day just for walking up this?”

“It's my place, Kirk,” Chris said. “It's... mine.” He bit back everything else that he was almost too tired and overwhelmed to keep inside, everything that he'd shut down from the second he realized the codes were gone, in Nero's hands, and there was nothing to do but wait to die. Kirk slanted a look at him, a Jim Kirk special, one that spoke volumes without a word.

“I know you're a stubborn bastard,” Kirk muttered as they paced up the steps, “but this is a little much even for you.” Chris had a sudden vision of all the nights when he had literally crawled the final few steps and couldn't help laughing at the aggrieved tone in Kirk's voice.

“Don't pass out from the shock, but I think I have to agree with you,” Chris said. He was slowing down, his legs almost gone. He shouldn't have thought about the times he hadn't been able to make it up these stairs; the power of suggestion was the last thing he needed after the day he'd had.

“Yeah, well, don't deck me for this,” Kirk said, shifting the carriers to one hand. “Or court-martial me; or, God, for real don't sic that ensign of yours on me--Uhura will love her and I'll die under all the paperwork they'll dump on me--but...” He got one shoulder under Chris's arm and his arm around Chris's waist, and they made the last ten steps that way.

Chris expected him to let go when they reached the front door, but Kirk only ducked his head down, so he could study the ground, and said, “I cut and ran the last time because it wasn't just about me, and I should have thought about that before I...”

Chris hadn't had the lights around the house re-programmed off of the motion sensors, but they were small, low-level solar-powered bulbs that cast only enough light for Chris to see a profile, nothing of the eyes or smile or attitude Kirk used to so much success.

“Before you...” Chris prompted, not thinking about how he hadn't stepped away from the arm still semi-supporting him, no matter that he'd been known to blast would-be assistance into the next galaxy during this last year.

“Yeah, well, I really should have been thinking about how it wasn't just about me from the first time I got Bones to get me on your floor. There was the _Enterprise_ and the crew and everything else that was happening.” Kirk half-shrugged. “But, y'know, I didn't, and there we were.”

“And it didn't occur to you that I might have had something to add to the conversation?” Chris slapped his hand on the lock to get the front door open and didn't press for an answer until they'd maneuvered themselves and the food inside, and even then he only arched an eyebrow at Kirk and waited in pointed silence.

“No,” Kirk sighed, after a few seconds. “Or, well, it did, but I was pretty sure whatever you'd add was going to point out what a stupendously bad idea it was.”

“It needed to be said,” Chris replied. Something dimmed in the blue eyes watching him, just a flash and then the shutters came down, so Chris might have been looking at a stranger for all that Kirk still had an arm around him. “But that doesn't mean it would have been the final answer.”

“And now?” Kirk didn't so much ask the question as breathe it, but there was no space between them, and Chris thought he might have heard it even if Kirk just thought it.

“It's still a spectacularly bad idea,” Chris said, just as quietly. It was still easier than he'd imagined to add, “And that's still not where it ends.”

“Good,” Kirk said, tilting his head slightly, enough that it was simple for Chris to lean in a little more and meet him straight up in a kiss that was careful and hesitant and tentative, none of the things Jim Kirk was known for. Chris would have left it like that, _had_ left it like that, had eased back a fraction, but then Jim's breath caught, all but imperceptible, as though he'd stopped everything but the first stutter in his breathing, and Chris had to have more. Jim didn't seem to object.

It was still a careful kiss, though, but Chris thought that was less because neither of them wanted to make another misstep and more because both of them were determined not to miss a thing, not the way Jim's breath hissed in when Chris nipped at his bottom lip, nor the shudder Chris had no hope of containing from the second Jim found the spot under Chris's jaw.

“Is this where it ends?” Jim said, some indeterminate amount of time later, when they stopped to breathe, Chris's back to the wall and his hands digging hard into slim hips, fingers splayed up under the loose T-shirt Jim wore, skin to skin like an electric circuit being completed. Jim said it as though it was a joke, and Chris would have answered it that way but for the thread of something needy and wanting that was running under every touch, every breath.

“No,” Chris said, instead. “Still not a good idea, but...”

“Yeah.” Jim leaned in so Chris could get his mouth on him again, tilting his head back in a clear invitation that Chris had no intention of ignoring. “ _Yeah_ ,” Jim repeated, more a groan than a word, and Chris could acknowledge that this was something he wanted, something he'd been wanting, and he wasn't going to let it go this time.

“One thing,” Chris managed to say, for once not caring how he sounded, not giving a damn that he was breathless and nearly shaking. Jim made an inquisitive sound, one that was just as strung-out as Chris felt himself, and that was why Chris didn't care. Whatever the hell this was, it wasn't just him teetering on the edge of control, and that was enough to disrupt the fine balance he was clinging to. Jim met him halfway, and, _God_ , Chris couldn't remember the last time he'd wanted something as much as he wanted this, wanted _Jim_.

“What?” Jim asked, tearing his mouth away from Chris's, and gasping in air like he'd forgotten he needed it to live. He didn't give Chris a chance to answer, though, only came back for more, like he needed Chris's mouth, too. “What one thing?”

“We are not doing this on the floor,” Chris said in a rush, in the brief split-second when his mouth wasn't actively engaged.

“Classy.” Jim hissed as Chris bit down on the curve of his jaw.

“Not on the floor,” Chris repeated. He mouthed over the mark he'd left, tasted that small bit of skin, and Jim shivered against him. “Bed. Now.”

“Not arguing,” Jim breathed, maneuvering carefully away from the wall and out of the kitchen. Chris murmured a few brief directions, but otherwise trusted that they'd get to his bedroom eventually, and allowed himself to indulge in the taste and feel of the body hard against him, a luxury he hadn't enjoyed in longer than he cared to remember.

It was a simple trip down a hall; even moving as slowly as they were, with every step forward countered by one that staggered sideways, or backwards as they lost their momentum, it didn't take long before they were in the bedroom. Jim's coat hit the floor one step inside the room, and Chris's tunic was unbuttoned and half off before they took another. Chris managed to make it to the bed before his legs finally gave out, but it wasn't until they got to Jim's boots that they really hit a snag.

“I'm not exactly up on the latest trends, but those would appear to be poor planning on your part,” Chris said, arching an eyebrow in response to Jim's muttered curses as he fought with the laces. “I thought Command Track at the Academy was all about assessing the situation.”

“Hey,” Jim said. “These are classics, and I had a plan, but anybody who tells you he was planning for _this_ “--he gestured around the room, and then went back to the boots--”to happen based on where we started is such a liar.”

“I'm fairly sure I don't really want to know,” Chris said, “but... you actually had a plan?”

“Well, okay, I had a vague idea that you might not shoot me if I had food when I showed up, and then I could maybe salvage some shred of a working relationship-- _yes_ ,” Jim hissed, as he finally got the laces unknotted and toed the boots off. “You know, the one I'd convinced myself was the only thing you had in mind before I was an idiot and read more into you making sure I didn't trash your girl--” He stopped with his shirt halfway over his head. “I, uh, never really thanked you for pushing the idea of me getting the _Enterprise_ , but yeah, I know you had a lot to do with it.” He pulled the shirt the rest of the way over his head and then held it bunched up in front of him. “I know she was yours--I swear I get that, and--we appreciate her every single day we're out there.”

“You're welcome,” Chris said, not a little bemused at how easily they were sliding between making out like a couple of horny teenagers and casual conversation like an old, married couple. “You earned her. And,” he sighed, “it's been pointed out to me on occasion that my default strategy in life is to ignore what I can't resolve, but I don't generally spend quite that much time with my junior officers.”

“Logically--” Jim stopped and rolled his eyes, as though he'd heard that word a thousand times already, which, knowing Spock, Chris didn't doubt. “Yeah, I mean, I did know that, but half the Admiralty still wants my head, so I wasn't sure if you weren't just doing damage control. It wouldn't take much for them to blow.”

“No,” Chris admitted. “It wouldn't.” He looked at Jim standing there in front of him, no shirt, only jeans, bare feet curling a little at the cool wood floor. “You're sure about this?” Chris made himself ask. “Like you said, it wouldn't take much to set them off.”

“Hell, yeah, I'm sure.” Jim thumbed open the button on his jeans, pushing them over his hips with a quick, decisive motion, and then he was naked and crawling up onto the bed to stretch out next to where Chris was sitting on the edge. “And you're falling behind here.”

Chris had draped his tunic over the chair next to the bed, and he'd taken care of his own boots and socks, which just left him his regulation pants and T-shirt to go. He reached back and pulled the shirt over his head, but then froze as a light, sure touch traced down his back, not quite over his spine, but along where they'd started the incisions in the first rough-and-ready surgeries that had taken place on the _Enterprise_.

“Bones said they had to practically cut you in half to get at the actual slugs,” Jim said quietly. Chris heard a lot of things in his voice, but not pity. He was an expert in hearing that, and it was the one thing he hadn't figured out how to deal with.

“Dermal regen got most of the scarring,” Chris said. “The rest of it is fading.” He didn't add that he almost didn't mind carrying the physical evidence of those days; it made it so he couldn't forget that there were things out there that were beyond his control, things that nobody could control. It made his own lack a little more bearable.

Jim moved closer and replaced the light touch of his fingertips with an equally light brush of his mouth, and Chris might as well have forgotten how to breathe. He fumbled at the buttons on his uniform pants for a ridiculous length of time, until Jim snaked an arm around his waist to help, and they somehow managed to get the pants, the last of their clothing, out of the way.

Jim pressed close behind him, his mouth on the curve of Chris's neck, his hands roaming freely, tracing long, lazy patterns over Chris's thighs and chest and belly, until Chris was almost light-headed from the touches.

“Fuck,” Jim whispered into Chris's skin. “I can't--you don't know how much I want this.”

“Show me,” Chris said, leaning back so he could find Jim's mouth. The angle was awkward and difficult, and it didn't matter at all. Chris skimmed his hands over any part of Jim he could reach, greedy and demanding, wanting to know every place that made Jim catch his breath, every place that made him shudder.

“Fuck,” Jim groaned as Chris took his time and worked a bruise into his collarbone, just low enough to be covered by a T-shirt, but dark enough that they both knew it would be there for a week. Every time he showered, every time he caught sight of himself in the mirror, he'd see where Chris had marked him. “More,” he said, and Chris was happy to oblige.

If Chris had ever thought of this, he would have assumed they'd be tearing at each other like animals, but this--this was slow and unhurried, each of them taking their time and finding what made the other crazy. Chris added bruises along the smooth skin of Jim's hip and high on the inside of his thigh. Jim spent an unconscionably long time teasing Chris's nipples to hypersensitive points of pleasure-pain, and then an equally long time tongue-fucking his navel. When they finally gave in and pressed together, not a whisper of space between them from shoulders to thighs, Chris could barely breathe for the pleasure. He worked a hand between them, circled both their cocks and stroked them roughly; Jim left bruises of his own, greedy grasping marks from his hands refusing to let go of Chris's hips, his thighs, his ass. He rocked them together in a frantic rhythm, groaning into Chris's mouth as his hold tightened at the base of their cocks and forced their climaxes back so they could start again.

He did it that way again, and once more, but the third time through Jim rolled them and forced the issue, grinding down on Chris with a punishing rhythm, and then they _were_ tearing at each other like animals, teeth and nails and back to teeth again, until Jim was begging, words flying out of him with a wild ferocity that set Chris off, too.

“Do it,” Jim gasped. “Do it, fuck, please. Fuck, I want to come on you, don't make me wait--”

“Come on,” Chris growled, but not letting up on the pressure. “Come through it, give it to me, come for me.”

He tightened his hand deliberately, almost cruelly, and bit once more at the bruise he'd already left, worrying at it, and Jim went rigid on top of him, bucking and grinding and almost sobbing with his release. At the first slick of hot fluid, Chris followed, coming hard, every nerve tightening and his vision whiting out around the edges so that all he could see was the blue of Jim's eyes right there with him.


	3. Chapter 3

In all his planning for the day, Chris had never expected to get any sleep. Then again, he sure as hell hadn't expected to end the day with Jim Kirk in his bed, either. Even if he'd been able to take that confounding event into account, he still would never have imagined the effect of having Jim, pliant and sated (and smug--very, very smug, but that went without saying), draped over him, breathing slow and easy into the curve of his neck. Somewhere in there, Chris did indeed slide into sleep, and even managed a full four hours before the dreams slammed through his brain.

Not unexpectedly, they were as strong and vivid as any he'd had, all five senses fully engaged, so he didn't just see and hear Nero, but was breathing the dank, heavy air of the hold, and choking on the slugs in his throat. He'd gotten the techniques of lucid dreaming down well enough that he knew he was dreaming, knew it would end as soon as he woke, but the memories had their claws sunk deep enough that nothing he did got him that final step into consciousness.

It ground on, his brain dredging up every second in excruciating detail: the way the leather straps had bitten into his skin, the metallic tang of the implements they used to pry his mouth open. He'd managed to bite one of them, not Nero, but one of the others, deep enough to draw blood; when he'd jerked his hand away, Chris had been splattered with the viscous fluid and it had dried slowly on his skin. He heard every word Nero had spoken to him, all the threats, the false-regret for causing him pain, the final murmured promises to take him back to Romulus as a pet. He was to the point of reliving the hallucinations he'd seen between the rounds of questions when he finally jerked enough to snap the illusion he was tied down and jolted himself awake.

  


Jim sprawled out next to him, one arm thrown over Chris and the other pushed up under the pillow, all the coverings thrown off, the low light from the city outside the windows tracking along the long curve of his back. Chris lay as quietly as possible, willing his heart and lungs back down from the pure fight-or-flight the dreams had left him with, and then slid carefully out of the bed, thanking whatever might be watching over him that he hadn't made enough of an idiot of himself to wake Jim.

He was drenched with sweat and his brain still thought it was smelling the Narada, neither of which were unexpected, so the first thing was a shower, a water-based one, with enough hot water to clean half the city and an equivalent amount of tea tree oil soap, that being the most effective at penetrating his stubborn brain and convincing it that there was something clean and fresh to smell. After that, he dressed in the oldest non-regulation clothes he had, and made his way into the small, old-fashioned kitchen.

The carrier bags Jim had brought with him were still piled haphazardly on the floor. From experience, Chris knew his stomach wouldn't tolerate much, but re-hydrating was never a bad idea. Lt. Andrews had favored ginger tea, so Chris packed the food away and dialed the replicator. Once the physical cues were dealt with, there wasn't much else to do but sit and wait for everything else to slowly fade back down into his subconscious. Some nights, he had enough of his wits about him that he could write student evaluations or review lesson plans, but tonight he just went out into the night and watched the sky. Only the brightest of stars could penetrate the city lights, but he knew where all of them were without having to see them.

Jim made plenty of noise as he came out to join Chris; if Chris wasn't so acutely aware of how every sense was on high alert, he might have been irritated at the care Jim was taking not to startle him. As it was, he was mostly just grateful for the consideration, even if he fucking loathed that it was needed.

Jim hadn't dressed beyond pulling on his jeans; Chris's breath caught at the brush of skin--like a tactile confirmation of the here and now--as Jim eased past him to lean on the railing next to where Chris sat. He didn't say anything, just settled himself like he was there for the duration and tipped his head back to study the night sky. After a while--Chris had no idea if it had been ten minutes or two hours--he shifted carefully so the back of his hand brushed along Chris's shoulder.

“Come back to bed,” Jim said, when Chris didn't move away.

“Sex isn't going to fix this,” Chris said. Jim was only barely touching him, but even that light pressure passed along the sheer force of his personality.

“You're freezing,” Jim murmured, and Chris was, but that wasn't anything new or different. He stood up, though, and let Jim shepherd him into the house and back to the bed, and while it was incredibly strange to have someone there as his brain let go of the last of the dreams, it didn't feel wrong. Jim didn't say anything more, and he didn't press Chris for explanations. He hesitated, waiting for Chris's okay before wrapping himself and the comforter around Chris. He matched his breathing to Chris's and then, matter-of-fact and straightforward, slowed the pace, and it didn't matter that Chris knew exactly what Jim was doing; his own breathing went right along.

“Your bedside manner is excellent,” Chris said, once he was fairly certain his voice wasn't going to give out on him.

“Tell Bones; he'll be so proud,” Jim mumbled into the curve of Chris's shoulder. “He's had the whole ship doing seminars on this stuff. Said he knew we were all going to need somebody to sit with us through this fucking day.”

“Very astute of him,” Chris said. Now that he was inside, and had his own personal blast furnace--Jim put out heat like a Vulcan--he could feel how chilled he'd let himself become. “Lucky you, to end up with me.”

“'s the least I can do,” Jim said, his arms tightening around Chris. “If we'd gotten there faster--”

Chris couldn't help the laugh that shuddered out of him, or that it sounded more like a sob than anything else. “You got there, which is more than I ever expected.”

“Yeah, but if we'd worked it out earlier, you'd have had less time with the neurotoxins--”

“Don't.” Chris shook his head. “It... is what it is.”

“Yeah,” Jim said, finally. “Okay. So long as you're taking your own advice.”

Chris shrugged, or at least tried to; with a person wrapped around him, his range of movement was decidedly limited. That should have been flipping switches and triggering the hell out of him, but he'd okayed every move, and something in his brain was holding on to that.

“You start thinking about the what-ifs and 'that way madness lies,'” Chris quoted.

“Whoa, Shakespeare,” Jim said, so close to his normal attitude that Chris couldn't decide if he was grateful or impressed. “So, it's just the 19th-Century stuff you hate?”

“We're not having this conversation,” Chris said, but only because that was what he was supposed to say. He'd gladly have any idiotic conversation Jim wanted to have, but he thought Jim already knew that.

“Yeah, yeah,” Jim answered. Chris could hear the exhaustion under the flip tone, or it was more that Jim was letting him hear it, and that felt like another deliberate step in whatever this dance was between them. “I knew you were only bitching at me on principle--”

“Go to sleep, Jim.”

“Just 'cause I'm gonna do exactly that, don't think you get to make all the decisions,” Jim mumbled, and was asleep before Chris even opened his mouth to respond.

Jim slept heavily, and Chris made a mental note to pull not just the standard ship's logs but the more in-depth mission briefings and see what was going on out there. He didn't trust any of the senior staff to keep a weather eye on the _Enterprise_ , half because they were waiting for Kirk to flame out--and the more spectacularly the better--and the other half because they didn't think they could afford to second-guess the Golden Boy.

Chris didn't sleep again, but--maybe more importantly--he let down the mental guards and relaxed for the first time in a year. It was peaceful in a way that very little had been; Chris felt himself soaking it up, like a desert in the spring rains. A little after sun-up Jim shifted a little, enough that Chris could slide out without waking him. He stayed for a while, regardless, but finally left before he got restless and accidentally woke Jim.

Working from the theory that discretion was the better part of valor, he ignored the newsfeeds and their doubtless-maudlin coverage of the day, and settled himself in the study with coffee and notes for a series of lectures. He lost himself in the research so deeply that it took him several minutes to disengage enough to even look up when Jim came wandering in hours later.

“Keep going,” Jim murmured, roaming around and studying the shelves that lined the walls. Chris might not have much love for fiction in any form, but he'd managed to pick up a somewhat ridiculous number of bits and pieces over the years, and whatever else he'd done while he wasn't sleeping these past weeks, at least they weren't languishing in boxes and carriers any longer.

Chris took Jim at his word, following his line of thought through; making enough notes that he could pick it up later. When he finally closed the file and looked up, Jim was studying the vid screen, but instead of the newsfeed he stared thoughtfully at the wallpaper, a satellite shot of the high desert around Mojave.

“You grew up there, right?” Jim said.

“Grew up, and thought about retiring there,” Chris answered.

“Thought about?”

“I have some land, but... it's undeveloped.” Chris walked over to the screen and traced the boundaries of his land. “Nothing much there, even now.”

“It's a plan,” Jim said.

“It was a plan,” Chris answered. “I'm not sure what it is now. I haven't been there since...”

“Everything,” Jim suggested, which was about as neutrally as the last year could be summarized.

“I haven't been able to work out exactly what to do with it,” Chris said.

“Yeah, you've been a little busy,” Jim said absently, still studying the screen. “I was down that way for some advanced survival shit--you know, the class where they drop you five miles up and come back for whoever's left at the end of the week.”

“We haven't actually ever lost a cadet, Kirk,” Chris said. “And with the right supplies, the high desert around there is not only survivable, but beautiful.”

“If you say so,” Jim said dubiously. He traced over the same line Chris had, as though he was trying to see something he'd missed. “What were you going to do?” Jim asked. “Before.”

 _Before_. Everyone talked like that now; Chris didn't suppose it was all that surprising, but it didn't make it easier to remember how everything had been, who _he_ had been.

“Build a house,” Chris said, finally. “Stables. Nothing big or elaborate, just... enough room to spread out a little. See the sun and the sky.” Jim nodded but didn't say anything, and after a few moments Chris added, “The first thing I always did when I got back Earthside was to go look at the sky. I love--loved--flying, but something about seeing this atmosphere...”

It was a common reaction to being in deep space for extended periods of time; most career Starfleet officers and crew ranked being able to see a sunset on their home world pretty high on their lists of things they missed. If Jim didn't know it already, he would before too much longer out in the black.

“And now?” Jim was so carefully neutral that Chris almost laughed. It was a legitimate question, though, and one Chris had been asking for a while. That didn't mean he had an answer.

“Haven't gotten that far,” Chris said slowly. “I--it hasn't been... a priority.” What he meant, but couldn't make himself say, was that he'd have had every Fleet doctor who'd worked on him crashing down on his head if he took off and hit the high desert alone. "I don't know that it's important enough now."

“We should go down there,” Jim said suddenly. “Today.”

“Today,” Chris echoed blankly, and Jim nodded.

“I can track down Bones, get him to give the medical okay--”

“No,” Chris said, quickly, before Jim could disturb McCoy's leave just to read Chris's chart. “There isn't a need for that... I'm as good as I'm going to get. I can go; I just haven't seen the need.”

“Yeah, so, I've still got...” Jim looked around for a clock. “Thirty-six hours before I need to be back for command briefings. I was thinking Vegas, but this is good. There's that spaceport right outside of Mojave, right? Easy trip down and back.”

Chris arched an eyebrow at that. “Going out to the high desert is better than Vegas? You're sure you haven't been exposed to anything odd recently?”

“See, now you're sounding like you've been talking to Uhura,” Jim said mildly. “Vegas is fun and all, but this'd be something new. “

“We wouldn't want you to be bored,” Chris said, but Jim had already stolen his PADD and was looking to see how quickly they could put something together.

* * * * * *

“Okay, I admit I wasn't all that excited about staying out here,” Jim said, as the sun dipped low on the horizon. 'Not excited' was one way of describing the long-suffering look on his face when it turned out that none of the seasonal motels were open, but once Jim Kirk got an idea in his head it would take more than a No Vacancy sign to get it out, so they'd pressed on. “Beds are seriously a good thing, but I guess I can work with that sunset.”

Chris hadn't really forgotten how the sky rioted with colors at sunset--his mother, who otherwise had little use for the high desert, would generally stop whatever she was doing and sit down to watch, dragging whichever of her children were nearby along with her--but it had been decades since he'd had the time to properly appreciate it. Even knowing the precise explanation of dust particles caught in the lower atmosphere bouncing the light from the sun didn't take away from the impression of a painter gone mad and throwing colors at a canvas.

  


“The best part comes after dark,” Chris said.

“The best part always comes after dark,” Jim answered, with a lazy smile that almost redeemed the smirk hiding behind it. Chris shouldn't react--it would only encourage him--but he couldn't help rolling his eyes, and Jim laughed. The outfitters they'd found provided food, too, but they'd passed on it in favor of everything Jim had brought as a calling card. Jim fell on it with the single-minded attention of someone who'd been living on Starfleet rations, but Chris had to admit it wasn't half-bad, even if it was a day old and not reheated. That might have been because he hadn't actually paid attention to food for a couple of weeks. Either way, the view was spectacular, and--he took great satisfaction in acknowledging it--it was his.

Once the sun went down, night fell quickly, and the expanse of stars vindicated the decision to sleep out on Chris's property. Even after half a lifetime, they were still far enough away from the major cities to avoid light pollution. Add in the clarity of the dry desert air and there were few places with better night skies.

“Now I get it,” Jim murmured. “I mean, I totally understand that most people don't have my knee-jerk reaction at the thought of going back to where they grew up, but I still couldn't figure out why you were so gung ho about this place.”

Chris didn't answer, but he didn't think he needed to.

* * * * * *

The shelter that came with their kit was less a tent and more a canopy with optional netting that they'd so far declined to attach, which meant that when Chris cupped Jim's face in his hands and drew him in for the first of a long series of kisses, he did it under the Milky Way. And later, when Jim had thrown their clothes in every direction, the half-moon had risen and was giving off enough light that Chris could see every shift in expression as he carefully worked three fingers deep inside Jim, stretching him so he could sink down on Chris in one slow, torturous glide. It was bright enough that Chris could watch him turn desperate and needy, even as he kept up the slow pace that was driving them both insane, bright enough that neither of them had any place to hide as every shift of Jim's hips stripped away another layer of their control.

“Nothing but this,” Chris said, moving his own hips and sliding, _god_ , deeper. Jim answered wordlessly; an open, vulnerable agreement that all but set Chris's blood on fire.

“Have to,” Jim gasped. “Faster. Please,” he groaned. “Fuck, Chris, _please_.”

Almost blind with his own want--that final helpless _please_ nearly shredding his control--Chris loosened the grip he had on Jim's hips and let him move more quickly, more roughly. Jim was taking him deep on every downstroke, each one harder than the last, each one wringing a sobbing moan from low in Jim's throat. Chris could feel his own climax building, gathering in his thighs and belly and groin, but he held on, determined to feel Jim coming around him first.

“Talk--talk to me,” Jim said. “Want to hear your voice.”

“What do you want to hear?” Chris murmured. “Do you want to hear that you're gorgeous on my cock, that you take it like you were made for it?” Jim choked out something that sounded affirmative, so Chris kept going, not entirely sure where any of the possessiveness was coming from, only that it was twisting them both tighter and higher with every syllable. “Do you want to hear how fucking much I want to mark you up, mark you as my property, make sure every single person who sees you knows you belong to me?”

“Fucking hell, Chris,” Jim gasped. “Fuck, I want that, too. Want them to know I got you, you're mine.”

“Come on,” Chris growled. “Don't you stop until I tell you--come on, fuck yourself, do it. _Do it_.”

JIm's body tightened convulsively around Chris and he was coming--low, helpless cries that sounded like they were shredding his throat, but he kept moving, fucking himself ruthlessly through the orgasm. Chris slammed up into him twice and then once more, and it was over, everything rushing through him, utterly out of his control except that he trusted that Jim would be there through it all.

* * * * * *

Sunrise over the desert was spectacular in its own way. Where sunset was the work of a mad artist and night was a glittering swathe of diamonds, dawn was quieter, a pale nacreous sweep that bleached into the full light of the sun. Chris watched it from under the twin protections of a dead-to-the-world Jim and a microtherm blanket they'd scavenged from a storage box in Chris's attic. Jim slept through most of it, but lifted his head from where it was pillowed on Chris's shoulder right as the first true rays shot through the clouds.

“Tell me again why you can't build a house here,” Jim murmured once the sun was fully up and had chased the chill of the night off. When Chris didn't answer, he added, “I could dare you, if that'd help.”

* * * * * *

The weather held through the morning and into the afternoon, so when they got back to the city, back to Chris's house, back to Chris's bed, Chris got to spread Jim out on sheets that were warm from the sun; got to take him one last time while the late afternoon rays slanted across the room. Chris took his time; fucked Jim slow and easy, and for all the bitching Jim was doing-- _goddamnit, I should have known you'd be a control freak_ and _Pike, I swear to god if you don't get me off *now*, I will let Scotty do unspeakable things to the _Enterprise_ ; fuck, come *on*, or I'll help him myself_\--he didn't do anything to hurry Chris along, just arched his back and lifted his ass and took what Chris gave him.

Chris drew it out for as long as he could, until Jim came, wordless and shaking under him, around him, and every breath he took himself was closer to a sob. The sun was bright when he finally let go and it all swept through him; long, slow waves of everything he'd never thought to have again.

“Fuck,” Jim sighed as they eased down onto the bed, Chris sprawling out on top of him. “Fuck,” Jim murmured again. Chris managed to hum in agreement and was vaguely proud he got even that much verbalized. Jim squirmed a little, as though he couldn't get comfortable, but when Chris started to move off his back, he reached back and found Chris's hip. “'sokay, stay.”

Chris nodded into Jim's shoulder and let the world take care of itself for a while without him. Jim kept his arm behind him, the tips of his fingers just brushing Chris's skin; Chris mouthed over the plane of Jim's shoulder, along the salt-sweet edge of his hairline. He might even have dozed a little.

“Fuck,” Jim said again, in an almost-normal voice, one that snapped Chris back to the present. “I have to get back.” He turned his head and shifted around so he could look at Chris, but otherwise didn't make any further moves toward leaving. Chris kept still and let him work through whatever was flying around behind his eyes. Finally, Jim sighed. “This is where we have that talk, yeah?”

“The one you keep jumping to conclusions about?”

“Yeah,” Jim said with a half-smile. “That one.”

“Since I'd appreciate not being thrown to the wolves in absentia, let's have it, then,” Chris said. “I'll even start: you're four months into a five-year mission, and there's nothing that says the Klingons are going to keep beating their chests rather than saying the hell with it and attacking for real, not to mention whatever the Romulans are telling themselves about Nero and the rest of the Federation and when that situation will redline.”

“Yeah,” Jim said. “All of which means we should just … let this--” He reached out and stroked the back of his hand along Chris's jaw, swallowing hard before he finished, “We should let this be.”

“We should,” Chris agreed. Neither one of them moved. “Is that what you want?” Chris was almost certain he knew the answer, and he wasn't thinking about what it would do to him if he was wrong, but he had to ask.

“No,” Jim breathed, closing his eyes. “It's stupid and reckless and not fair to either of us, but no, I don't want that. I want...”

Chris turned his head so he could brush a kiss across the backs of Jim's fingers. “What?” he asked quietly.

“You,” Jim said, opening his eyes. They were clear and unshadowed and all for Chris. “I want to be the one who's allowed to bitch at you about building that damn house. I want to know you'll be the one Bones will threaten to rat me out to when he thinks I'm being stupid. I want to have the right to have you be the last thing I think about every night and to know I'm that for you, too.”

“Good,” Chris managed to say through everything that was surging through him, too many things to tease one out from the other. He caught Jim's mouth in a hard kiss, letting him go just long enough to repeat himself. “ _Good_. I want that, too. All of it.” Jim came back for more, and again, but the sun was almost gone, and he was out of time. Chris forced himself to be satisfied with what he had--it was, after all, more than he'd ever expected.

It probably would have been more prudent to shower separately, but some times were not meant for sensible behavior, and Chris was not above flashing the stars and cutting through the more meaningless protocol to get Jim through to the shuttle waiting room on time.

“And, you know,” Jim said, in the last few minutes before he left for spacedock, “I've been wanting a good excuse to try out the captain's encryption, before it's an emergency. If you're in your office, Professor-Emeritus-Admiral, you should be cleared to accept a tight beam from me. A little private time--the kind without clothes, yeah?--wouldn't be a bad thing, right? “

“I'm sure they field-tested the encryption on the tight beam extensively,” Chris answered, with the exasperated tone he knew he was supposed to have. At the very least, he thought he covered how much certain parts of his brain fucking loved the idea; Jim did not need to know that. “Let's not give the Admiralty any new ammunition.”

“See? There you go again with the common-sense stuff,” Jim answered, laughing. “Fine. I'll be good. I hear there's an awesome club on Risa that specializes in private sessions between worlds. That might work better.”

“Possibly,” Chris said. He leaned a little closer and let his voice drop lower. “But only if you go for the fully private package. I would... _object_ to random technicians getting off on your private time.” Jim gave him a fairly convincing smirk, one that was supposed to convey how very not-bothered he was by that possessive tone, but Chris knew what to look for now, and all the signs were there: slightly dilated pupils; the pulse at the base of his throat tripping hard and fast. It was, Chris admitted, a hell of a rush, seeing that effect.

In a more conversational tone, but still pitched quietly enough to be private, he added, “Five years is a long time, Jim; things happen. We both know that.”

“Yeah, we do.” Jim was unexpectedly serious again. “Doesn't mean we're not way out in front of the curve now.”

“No, it doesn't,” Chris agreed with a satisfaction that ran bone deep, all the more gratifying for how utterly unexpected the entire situation was.

“This is crazy,” Jim said. “But not stupid, right?”

“Right.”

“Okay.” Jim took a deep breath and turned to go. “Look for that transmission from Risa.”

“Jim,” Chris said, catching his arm. He kept a straight face as he said, “Try the Pan Risa Club. They have an outstanding library of toys for their transmission sessions.”

Jim blinked twice and then smiled, slow and brilliant. “Yeah, this is so not stupid.”

Chris had to laugh at the unholy glee in his eyes, which set Jim off as well, and if nothing else, at least they were starting off on a happier note than Chris felt he had any right to expect.


	4. Epilogue

Chris had informed junior officers of extended-duty rosters for more years than he could remember, but he'd never seen one have quite the reaction he was getting from Colt.

“Vulcan? _New Vulcan?_ “ Colt stared blankly at Chris. “You--I--New Vulcan?” Chris couldn't really blame her; no one but a handful of technicians and engineers had been planetside on New Vulcan, much less invited guests of the Vulcan High Council. “I--oh, I _knew_ I should have kept those lecture notes accessible.” She started back toward her desk, then got hold of herself and turned back to Chris. “Did you need me for anything specific, sir, or--I have my notes on Vulcan culture and protocol and I can contact my professors--do you know a general schedule--oh,my _god_ , next _week_ , you said?”

“Breathe, Ensign,” Chris said, and she held on to the side of her desk and did just that. “I'm sure we'll be all but buried in protocol briefings over the next few days. As for a schedule, I believe we'll be accompanying Sarek--”

Chris broke off as she went white as a sheet.

“Sir,” she--well, squeaked. There was unfortunately no other word for it. “I--Sir, I had professors, respected professors, who'd never met a Vulcan of that esteem,” she said once she could breathe again. “And I'm just an _ensign_.”

 _Not for much longer_ , Chris thought, but kept that tidbit to himself. It would be a fast promotion, but Chris was prepared to push it through forcibly if he had to. It shouldn't take that, not once they returned from New Vulcan, but it was always best to be prepared.

There was barely enough time to breathe after the news got out and the resulting chaos snapped Colt back to her usual hyper-efficient self. “I go home and scream into a pillow,” Chris overheard her say as she ran out the door with a friend, on the way to yet another briefing.

“Does it help?” the other ensign asked.

“Not really, but at least I haven't thrown up yet,” Colt replied. Chris decided to leave it alone.

* * * * * *

While Chris wasn't surprised that Sarek and the ambassador--Chris still had the slightest mental hiccup in thinking of him as Spock--had insisted that the _Enterprise_ be the ship to transport their small group to New Vulcan, he was a little impressed that they'd managed to pull it off. If he was reading between the lines properly, he thought Jim and their own Spock had more than a little to do with it, too. Chris saved up the apoplectic glares that greeted Jim's message to Fleet command, where he announced in the blandest of tones that of course his flagship would be at the Admiral's disposal. He thought Jim would enjoy hearing about them almost as much as Chris had enjoyed seeing them.

In reality, the delegation was on the _Enterprise_ 's schedule, standing ready a full two days before she warped in almost directly from a standoff with Romulan Empire. The command team spent the entire twelve hours they were in spacedock in debriefings, while the rest of the crew cleaned up and replenished, and the delegation to New Vulcan assembled on Earth for the shuttle ride up.

Ensign Colt stood with a packing list on her PADD, reviewing the baggage one last time, though Chris suspected it was more to keep her from exploding from excitement than out of any real need to check for mass and volume compliance.

The trip up to spacedock was smooth and easy, and once they were there everything proceeded with clockwork efficiency. Their bags, with formal dress uniforms and the working blues they'd be spending most of their days in, were whisked off, and they were escorted out to where the _Enterprise_ was airlocked to the facility. Spock met them personally as they were piped aboard.

“With the captain's compliments, if you're not too tired, he's waiting for you on the bridge,” Spock relayed. Chris was fairly certain those words had never crossed Jim Kirk's lips, but he was equally certain the sentiments applied. And he'd have to have been half-dead to miss that. Colt left to make sure all was well with their baggage--god forbid they not have everything she deemed necessary--and Chris started on the familiar walk to the bridge.

“Admiral on deck,” the officer of the day called as Spock stepped back to let Chris precede him, and Chris didn't think he imagined the ripple of excitement that crossed the room.

“As you were,” Chris called quickly, and everything fell back into rhythm of pre-flight prep. Kirk was lounging in the captain's chair, for all intents and purposes doing nothing but carrying on an argument with Lt. Uhura that had the familiar undertones of a much-enjoyed ritual, while acknowledging check-ins from around the ship.

“Good to have you on board, sir,” Kirk said without so much as a ghost of a smirk, and went right back to accepting reports. Spock left to take care of his last-minute scans, and Chris stood there and let it all sink in.

“Bridge to Engineering,” Jim was saying. “Report?”

“All shiny new, Captain,” Mr. Scott said. “I can't believe how much they got done in less than a day. We'll have to break all this in.”

“I'm sure we will, Scotty,” Jim said. “Bridge out.” He stood up and turned to Chris. “She's all yours, Admiral.”

“I--excuse me?” Chris was stuttering, but he thought he might be entitled.

“You don't think I'm taking your flagship out while you're on board, do you?” Jim grinned. “You have the conn, sir.”

Chris shook his head and felt his own mouth quirk up into a smile. “Lieutenant,” he called to Uhura. “Please page Ensign Colt to the bridge.”

“Right away, sir.” Chris heard the call go out as he settled himself in the chair: _Ensign Colt to the Bridge; Colt to the Bridge_. Before Chris could wonder if she had any idea how to get to there, the doors were opening and a familiar red head appeared.

“Mia,” Chris called. “From what I remember, you've never seen a starship go out of spacedock.” When she shook her head, he added, “Well, now you've got a prime seat.”

“Awesome,” Jim murmured, as he passed behind Chris. “Don't think I don't know this is a ploy to make sure she meets Uhura and they form an alliance that'll--”

“Make sure I really know what's going on up here?” Chris murmured back, never taking his eyes off the view screen.

“Evil,” Kirk muttered, and Chris didn't bother hiding his own smile.

“Ease her out, Mr. Sulu,” Chris ordered, and the engines hummed to life around them as the view outside the window shifted and rolled.

“Free of spacedock, Admiral,” Sulu reported. “Course set for New Vulcan.”

“Excellent,” Chris said, and he was grinning like an idiot but he really couldn't be bothered about it--especially not when Jim grinned back at him, as bright as any ten stars. “Punch it.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks, first: As always, [](http://without-me.livejournal.com/profile)[**without_me**](http://without-me.livejournal.com/) and [](http://withdiamonds.livejournal.com/profile)[**withdiamonds**](http://withdiamonds.livejournal.com/) deserve ginormous thanks for going through my drafts and fixing problems and pointing out issues and telling me what doesn't make sense, on top of listening to me whine endlessly about what's in front of me. I say that every time, but double especially for this one, because writing a Big Bang as the first toe-in-the-water of a new fandom is kinda nerve-wracking, OMG. And on that topic, [](http://liz_w.livejournal.com/profile)[**liz_w**](http://liz_w.livejournal.com/) gets many gold stars for going through and catching my non-Trekisms. If there are any left, they're all my fault; I was writing up to the last second.
> 
> Special thanks to [](http://deliciousny.livejournal.com/profile)[**deliciousny**](http://deliciousny.livejournal.com/) and [](http://cero-ate.livejournal.com/profile)[**cero_ate**](http://cero-ate.livejournal.com/) , who took on art and fanmixing duties for an oddball pairing, but who absolutely nailed what I had in my head. Please go leave them some love at their master posts; I absolutely love what they did. And many thanks to the mods for running a clean, easy challenge, which I know takes tons more effort than appears on the surface.
> 
> The title comes from the first stanza of the poem _Home Is The Sailor_ , by A. E. Houseman, but I think the whole thing fits what I had in my head:
> 
> Home is the sailor, home from sea:  
> Her far-borne canvas furled  
> The ship pours shining on the quay  
> The plunder of the world.
> 
> Home is the hunter from the hill:  
> Fast in the boundless snare  
> All flesh lies taken at his will  
> And every fowl of air.
> 
> 'Tis evening on the moorland free,  
> The starlit wave is still:  
> Home is the sailor from the sea  
> The hunter from the hill.
> 
>   
> In conclusion (yes, _finally_ ): I blame this whole blasted thing on Bruce Greenwood's voice, because he might have only had 20 lines in the movie, but damn, he sucked me right in.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Every Morning After the End of the World (The Disaster Recovery Remix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4490904) by [igrockspock](https://archiveofourown.org/users/igrockspock/pseuds/igrockspock)




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